Tomedes Helps Impact for Equity Make Cook County's Property Tax Appeal System Accessible to 14 Language Communities

Impact for Equity has spent more than 50 years fighting systemic injustice in Chicago. When language became a barrier to property rights, Tomedes made sure it did not stay one.
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14
Language versions delivered
50+
Years of advocacy since 1969
4
Language families covered
2
Right-to-left writing systems
About Impact for Equity

A catalyst for justice in Chicago since 1969

Impact for Equity is a public interest law and policy center that has been a catalyst for racial, economic, and social justice in Chicago and Illinois since 1969. Originally founded as Businessmen for the Public Interest, it has grown into one of Chicago's most respected legal advocacy institutions, fighting housing inequity, challenging discriminatory policy, and holding institutions accountable for fair and equitable treatment.

Today, its work is focused on two interconnected systems: affordable housing and the criminal legal system. The organization uses legal tools, policy research, litigation, and community partnerships to dismantle structural barriers that disproportionately affect communities of color and low-income families across Illinois.

When Impact for Equity identified language access as a barrier to Cook County residents exercising their right to appeal property tax assessments, they needed a translation partner who could move quickly, cover a wide range of languages, and deliver materials accurate enough to guide community members through a formal legal process.

The Challenge

Three challenges in making a legal process accessible across 14 languages

Property tax appeals are not simple. The Cook County system involves formal procedures, defined legal terminology, and structured documents that require residents to understand their rights, gather evidence, and engage with a government process designed in English. For residents whose primary language is not English, that is a compounding barrier. Three challenges defined the project.

01

Legal terminology requiring precision across 14 communities

These are legal documents. Terms covering assessment procedures, appeal grounds, burden of proof, and procedural requirements carry defined legal meaning. The communities using them include residents with varying levels of legal literacy, so the translation had to be both legally accurate and genuinely accessible: precise enough to hold up procedurally, plain enough for a first-time homeowner to use.

02

Diversity across four language families and two writing systems

The 14 languages span four language families and two right-to-left writing systems. A single workflow could not be applied uniformly. Arabic and Urdu needed right-to-left formatting awareness, Pashto needed sourcing from a limited specialist pool, and Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese needed translators familiar with how legal process terms are rendered for U.S. immigrant communities, not just in-country equivalents.

03

Speed and simultaneity across all 14 languages

All 14 versions had to reach community members before the relevant appeal deadlines. This was not a sequential project. Every language version had to be produced in parallel, with quality assurance applied to each independently, and delivered as one complete package, not staggered batches that would create unequal access across language communities.

Why Tomedes

Wide language coverage with certified human post-editing

Impact for Equity selected Tomedes for its ability to cover a wide range of languages, including less commonly requested ones such as Pashto, and its certified AI translation with full human post-editing workflow, which provided the combination of speed and accuracy the project required. A dedicated account manager guided the team through the process, answered questions at each stage, and ensured they understood exactly what was being delivered and when. The project was structured to produce all 14 language versions in parallel, with human post-editing applied independently to each language before delivery.

The Solution

A layered approach to accurate, accessible, simultaneous delivery

1

Certified AI translation with full human post-editing

Rather than relying on a single method, Tomedes used a certified AI translation with full human post-editing workflow, combining the speed of AI-assisted translation with the accuracy and contextual judgment of professional linguists who reviewed and corrected every segment. For legal documents used to make formal appeals, no terminology was left to AI output alone. Every document was reviewed and approved by a qualified human linguist with subject-matter familiarity before delivery.

2

Specialist sourcing for lower-resource language pairs

For languages including Pashto, Farsi, and Urdu, where the pool of qualified translators with both fluency and U.S. legal context is narrower, Tomedes drew on its specialist network to source translators with the right combination of language proficiency and relevant background. Right-to-left formatting requirements for Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, and Pashto were flagged during pre-production and addressed in the delivered files.

3

Plain language review for non-specialist readers

Legal accuracy alone was not enough. The documents had to be understood by community members navigating the appeal system for the first time, many with no prior exposure to property tax law. After the main translation pass, each language version was reviewed for plain language accessibility, confirming that procedural instructions, eligibility criteria, and deadlines were expressed in language a general adult reader in each community could act on without specialist knowledge.

4

Parallel delivery ensuring equal access across communities

All documents were translated across all 14 languages simultaneously, so no community received their materials later than another. The complete package was delivered as a single, organized delivery, ready for distribution to the community partners and residents who needed it. Parallel production at this scale required coordinated project management across multiple language tracks, with independent quality assurance applied to each language before the final package.

5

RTL formatting and document integrity across writing systems

The right-to-left versions (Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, and Pashto) needed attention beyond translation. Text directionality, punctuation behavior, numeral rendering, and layout all behave differently in RTL environments, and errors there produce documents that are technically translated but visually unusable. Each RTL version was reviewed specifically for formatting integrity before delivery, so the documents worked as real reading materials, not just translated text strings.

The Result

The same procedural accuracy, available in every community's language

When Impact for Equity's community partners and residents in Chicago's Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Polish, Vietnamese, Korean, Tagalog, Ukrainian, Russian, Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Pashto, and French-speaking communities received the Cook County Property Tax Appeal materials, they received them in their own language, with the same procedural accuracy available to English-speaking homeowners. The documents were delivered on time, within budget, and without quality issues requiring rework.

14
Languages delivered in parallel
0
Quality issues requiring rework
100%
Delivered on time and within budget

To illustrate what that accessibility looks like in practice, here is a passage from the General Explainer as it appears in the Mexican Spanish version, legally precise while remaining clear enough for a homeowner to act on.

ES
Mexican SpanishGeneral Explainer

“Si un contribuyente considera que su factura es incorrecta o demasiado alta, puede apelar la valuación. Sin embargo, apelar el valor tasado de una propiedad no necesariamente resulta en una factura de impuestos más baja. No todos los propietarios ganan su apelación, y una apelación no modifica las tasas establecidas por los distritos fiscales.”

Legally precise, plainly readable
14
All 14 languages deliveredIn parallel, as one package
ArabicChinese (Simplified)FrenchFarsiHindiKoreanPashtoPolishRussianSpanishTagalogUkrainianUrduVietnamese
Equal access across every community

This is the balance the translation had to strike throughout: legally precise, correctly rendering terms like "valor tasado," "apelación," and "distritos fiscales," while remaining clear enough for a Spanish-speaking homeowner to understand their situation and decide whether to proceed. Language should not determine whether a Chicago family can exercise their right to challenge an unfair property tax assessment. Tomedes' role in this project was to make sure it did not.

Tomedes translated 9 documents for us into three different languages. The cost was reasonable and the turnaround time was fast without sacrificing quality. Denis on the Customer Success Team was also extremely communicative and helpful, he really guided us through this process and answered our many questions.

MV
Mallory VerezPolikoff-Gautreaux Fellow, Impact for Equity
Verified review on Trustpilot
Project Snapshot

Key details

Document type
Legal explainers, flowcharts, procedural checklists, and appeal guides for the Cook County Property Tax Appeal System
Language pair
English → Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), French, Farsi, Hindi, Korean, Pashto, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Ukrainian, Urdu, and Vietnamese
Industry
Legal / NGO / Public interest advocacy
Service type
Certified AI translation with full human post-editing
Scope
Full document suite across 14 languages
Certification
ISO 17100:2015
Tools used
Key Terms Glossary · Consistency Checker · Translation Quality Assessment · Pre-Translation Toolkit

Making legal or public information accessible across language communities?

If you're a legal advocacy organization, nonprofit, or public institution that needs to make legal documents, community resources, or public information accessible across language communities, Tomedes can help. Contact us for a free consultation.

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