Legal Interpreting Provider Magna Acquires Court Reporting Company Zanaras

Philadelphia-headquartered Magna Legal Services has acquired court reporting and videography provider Zanaras Reporting & Video. 

According to a press release announcing the acquisition, the combined workforce will include 658 employees, and more than 4,000 court reporters, 100 litigation consultants, and 2,000 interpreters.

“Clients of Zanaras will now have easy access to Magna’s full suite of services, including document translation, interpreting, medical record retrieval, social media surveillance, visual communications, jury consulting, and nationwide court reporting services,” the press release stated.

Founder and original sole owner of Zanaras, Julie Zanaras, started her company in 2007. That same year, Peter Hecht, Mark Calzaretta, Bob Ackerman, and Jon Ackerman established Magna Legal Services, with a focus on litigation support services for law firms, corporations, and governmental agencies around the world. Post-acquisition, the companies will have 28 locations across the United States. 

Although Zanaras and Magna had a preexisting relationship, discussions of the deal began when Lamkin Road, a North Carolina-based investment bank advising Zanaras, approached Magna.

Focused on M&A

“Magna is very focused on M&A and partnerships and this was a high priority for the Company even before being approached,” Magna’s Head of M&A Chase Culbertson told Slator. 

Magna declined to share financial details of the acquisition, which closed on November 13, 2023, or profitability measures for either company.

Zanaras will maintain its brand, now as a division of Magna. Culbertson added, “Julie Zanaras is staying on to manage the Zanaras workforce and she is an investor in the combined business, making this more of a partnership than an acquisition from our perspective.” 

Smartcat as TMS

Magna primarily uses the Smartcat platform for translation project management, translation memory management, and machine translation. The company’s court reporting management system includes an integration for scheduling interpreters.

The most in-demand languages are Spanish, Chinese, Korean, German, and French, with English as a source or target language.

“Ninety percent of our business is in interpreting, but our translation revenue has doubled in the past year,” Culbertson said. “We are seeing a sharp increase in translation and interpreting requests resulting from large-scale civil litigation, particularly in intellectual property and other commercial disputes.”