How to Do Legal Translations


by Phil Chavanne - Date: 2007-10-21 - Word Count: 529 Share This!

Legal translation is a very distinguished term from that of any other technical translations, because of its system-bound nature of legal terminology. While solving international legal problems, a lawyer sometimes has to go through foreign documents. The lawyer's accuracy of understanding will depend on the accuracy with which the legal document is translated. Therefore, a professional translator specializing in legal translation should handle and translate legal documents and scholarly writings to avoid any kind of mistranslations, which could lead to lawsuits and loss of money.

A successful legal translator requires competency in a few areas such as:
-Knowledge of the legal systems.
-Familiarity with relevant terminology.
-Competency in specific legal writing.

A significant fact that should be kept in mind is that, poorly translated documents or sub-par court interpretation can highly influence a case's outcome, hamper a company's international reputation, and even elicit a class action lawsuit. Hence a professional legal translator must possess qualities of a linguists, legal scholar, and detective, able to search out and define legal concepts expressed in the source language of a document.

When it comes to translating legal documents one has to be aware of following aspects:

The legal system of each country is different; therefore, one cannot translate every legal term directly from one language to the next.

There are different specialties within the legal field, such as business law, patent law, criminal law and constitutional law and each has its own specialized terminology.

Translation of legal documents can be used in court and often used outside the court system and thus become legal documents in their own right, and therefore must be handled with extreme attention to accuracy and completeness.

Translating legal documents, technically speaking, should be according to the official and legal norms, like the format or layout, the heading, the official stamping, insertion of notes, address details, and even the writing materials used for the translation must be acceptable for official purposes.

Legal translation services are by far one of the common types of translation services not only in the US but around the world too. There are some legal documents that are not too difficult to translate, whereas there are ample of documents which are turgid or purposely ambiguous. But through regular involvement in a specific type of legal translation, such as contracts, depositions, divorce decrees etc., the work becomes much easier as you can find out that they invariably follow the same formula.

Law is a culture dependent subject. Therefore, legal system of the source text is structured in a way that suits the particular culture and is reflected in the legal language. Similarly, the target text is to be read by someone who is accustomed with another legal system and its language. And most forms of legal writing seek to establish clearly defined rights and duties for certain individuals. Therefore, it is essential to ensure precise correspondence of these rights and duties in the source text and in the translation.

About the Author:

Armando Riquier has many years of experience as a writer and translator and works with Tectrad, a company specialized in translating finance, legal and corporate matters. Maintain an excellent image with your investors, shareholders and foreign customers through quality financial, legal and business translation services.

Related Tags: translations, language translation, translation, translation services, translator, docu, translation agency, translation agencies, translation company

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