Answer
The police clearance certificate must be recent; for Uruguay, the guideline is that it be no more than one year old and be apostilled or legalized. Therefore, it should not be obtained too early if the other documents are not yet ready.
The procedure depends on the country of issue. For countries that use apostilles, the certificate is apostilled; for countries without apostilles, legalization is used. It is then translated in a format accepted by the Uruguayan authorities.
If certificates are needed from several countries, the deadlines should be calculated separately. A document with limited validity may become outdated while the apostille, delivery, and translation are being arranged. Therefore, documents valid for longer are collected first, and the police clearance certificate is planned closer to filing, when the rest of the papers are ready.