Legal translation is the field of translation that transforms legal documents and material from one language to another while respecting the original meaning. Legal translation is a translation that pertains to the law, as well as translation language used in legal settings and for legal purposes.
This sort of translation consists of a procedure that considers legal background. Legal translations may be translations of legal documents, such as contracts, laws, and patents, or even more advanced documents like judgments and decrees. Legal translations may also be used for a variety of purposes, such as to understand the meaning of a contract or other legal document better or to prepare an English translation of a document for use in an international business transaction or legal proceeding.
Importance of Legal Translation
Legal translations may need to be handled by legal translators who are well-versed in the legal system in their native language and target language. Translators who have not been educated in the law may not be able to properly convey the appropriate information contained in a legal document from one language to another.
There are some special requirements for those who wish to provide legal translation services. The translator needs to be well educated and capable of providing accurate translations, even if they do not specialize in this type of work. Ideally, they should have a degree related to the field they will be translating, such as education or linguistics; they should also have extensive experience with translating documents into their native language.
It is important for anyone who is providing these types of services to make sure they are properly qualified.
When someone hires a translator or translation agency for a legal translation procedure, it is extremely important to be able to depend on a reliable outcome. If the translation isn’t accurate enough it can have legal consequences. An improperly translated document can directly affect people’s rights.
Legal translators are responsible for translating a wide range of items. The translation process is similar whether you are using in-house translators, a freelance language service provider, or a translation agency. First, a translator will carefully make an accurate translation of the document.
The translation should then be proofread for accuracy. Many court documents or certificates also need to be properly formatted according to the preferences of different legal systems.
In several countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and other common law countries, legal documents need to be in a specific format. Not only does each section have an order and title but it also has a specific font and paragraph style that makes it clear that the document is indeed a legal document.
If someone is trying to go through the process of filing for bankruptcy or suing, they will want to make sure that their documents adhere to the specific rules of formatting.
Types of Legal Documents
Legal translation is a lot different than other forms of translation because it often deals with formatting as much as it deals with the actual meaning of the words that are being translated. According to Malcolm Harvey (2002), legal translation have four characteristics, including:
- Having the nature of legal discourse
- Having a system-bound discipline
- Having fidelity
- Having ambiguity and interpretation
In legal translations, mistranslations are unforgivable because they can lead to financial losses and loss of lives. Legal document mistranslations can influence people’s lives, the reputation of businesses, and the international economy. Legal translations require native speakers who are subject matter experts.
Risks and Consequences of Mistranslation
They should have a solid background in law to render the translations accurately. Legal translation is demanding because the translator should be well-versed in the source and target languages’ laws. Several risks and consequences of mistranslating legal documents including:
- Financial losses and obligations.
Errors in legal translations can lead to long-standing legal disputes between countries and companies. Mistranslations in legal documents can lead to hefty legal bills and other unnecessary costs that are unquantifiable. having errors in the translation of legal documents can result in losses of hundreds and thousands of dollars in different forms over the years.
All the stakeholders stand to face losses over the mistake – the translation company, the translation team, the legal firm that commissioned the translation, and other parties, including the legal firm’s client and the third parties to the transaction.
- Loss of reputation
Aside from the financial losses, businesses will be losing their reputation due to mistranslations of legal documents. Mistakes in documentation and contract can damage the brand image and the company’s credibility. Partners would view the errors as a lack of professionalism, causing them to seek other potential partners. Others may find themselves facing lawsuits. This is how costly the mistranslations of legal documents can become.
- Other forms of losses
Mistakes in legal translation have a snowball effect. The errors can waste hours spent by both parties on lawyers, court, penalties, and other expenses. Errors can cause brands’ reputations to plummet. Clients have to look for another translation agency to request a new translation of the same document. Such situations involve losses in time and money.
There are a lot of terminologies that go into legal translation. To a person new to this subject, many of the words revolving around legal translation may seem relatively similar but different. When translating from one legal system to another, the likeness between the two legal systems has a bigger impact on the difficulty of the translation than the relatedness of the languages. Therefore, translators must be able to deal with challenges caused by the incongruity of a word’s definition once translated.
Legal translations also require in-depth knowledge of specific terms and attention to detail. Experience and a background in the industry are also extremely helpful. Thus, there are several challenges in doing the legal translation. Those challenges include:
- Legal Systems Are Different from Country to Country
Legal systems are different in every countries and means that the legal documents are also different. This variety of paperwork creates the right environment for ambiguity in translation. Often, international organizations provide guidance and some best practices to help translators transform documents from one language to another without changing them.
A legal translator should know all the variations and similarities between the standard of both the source and target language. Experts should be aware of the terms’ existence with no equivalent or with multiple equivalents in the target language, and should also be trained to identify the correct usage of every term depending on the context, to avoid misunderstandings.
- The Laws Evolve and Systems Change
Legal systems also keep changing and updating. Therefore, legal translators must keep up with a series of norms and regulations that often change overnight. It involves staying connected to everything that happens in both countries, as well as keeping an eye on every new law that might affect their work.
- Word Selection Does Not Leave Room for Flexibility
Legal executives often speak a language within the language, using terms that even native speakers barely understand and often misuse. Therefore, translators are required to interpret the source document and understand the meaning behind it. However, they have a very narrow framework when it comes to choosing the best words.
Working with a glossary of terms and building a solid translation memory can be the best way to overcome this challenge in translating legal documents. It also saves linguists time and reduces the risks of translation errors.
- Syntax and Punctuation Require Attention to Detail
The trickiest part of translating legal documents lies in their syntax, as most of these documents use a series of ambiguous words that make the material hard to read. It’s the standard in the legal industry to use the passive voice; complex sentences that seem endless, infinite number of commas, semicolons, and apostrophes.
The translation is required to follow the same rules as the original. Missing commas in legal translation can create ambiguity in legal contracts, where every omission or interpretation can change the terms and conditions. The best way to avoid this sort of mistake is to have a second pair of eyes for proofreading or have a local specialist check the translated version of the document before handing it to the client.
- Legal Translators Often Work with Strict Deadlines
Most of the time, legal documents are tied to events that involve courtrooms, deadlines, and corporate actions. They all have some strict timescales in common. Delays in this industry can trigger a series of unpleasant events for the translators involved, as well as their clients and their client’s business partners.
From all the risks and challenges explained about doing legal translation, it can be seen that legal translators have a huge responsibility in doing their job. Legal translation services take great responsibility while translating or proofreading texts. Because during the translation, even a small mistake such as putting a comma in the wrong place, can make the text open to different interpretations causing legal problems.
Legal translators have to go a few steps further than just translating a text from one language to another. They must have a commanding knowledge of the legal language and terminology both in their native and target language. There is a special procedure for certified translation, a specific branch of legal translation, which make the certified translators have an obligation to accept responsibility for the accuracy of the documents they translate.
Challenges in Legal Translation
Meanwhile, Potential clients would need to check the credentials of the translation agency or legal translator to get a quality legal translation. Checking out how the agency or the translator handles possible errors in translations is quite crucial. A potential client can check this through reputable translation industry organizations. One of the elements potential clients should look at is whether the potential legal translator has adequate legal background and/or experience.
There is much more a legal translator has to do to be able to come up with a quality translation. Legal translators must constantly be up to date with the legal regulations, both in the country of source and target language, including updating their specialist legal dictionaries in both languages. They also must constantly update or be in constant contact with the person who takes care of terminology databases.
Translating legal documents requires language skills, legal knowledge, and speed. It’s impossible to be successful in this niche without specialized training. Translating legal documents also requires translators to have a high level of experience to meet all the requirements in this niche.
Legal translators are also required to obtain specific certifications to be able to do this job, and must always be updated regarding the change in legal regulations, both in the country of source and target language. And as legal translations often need to be legalized or certified to be relevant, legal translators should be registered with official institutions.
Source
Stillmantranslations.com
Polilingua.com
Wikipedia.org
Etranslationservices.com
Clearwordstranslations.com
Unitedlanguagegroup.com
Tarjama.com
Bunnystudio.com
