Legal Translation Challenges and Content Today

There has been a growth in demand for legal translations in the multilingual environment, particularly from law firms and legal departments. Multilingual language support is frequently required in legal areas such as for discovery, mediation, and court reporting when it comes to the need to accommodate the language requirements of people who do not speak the Court’s language.

Also, when bankruptcy has occurred in another country, there may be the need for the translation of legal documents to sort out any issues involved if the business or assets are owned by someone who doesn’t reside permanently in the country where the bankruptcy to place. Depending on the languages involved legal translations are confronted with more challenges than other types of translations.

Three Content Challenges for Legal Translations

Legal translation is without a doubt one of the most difficult translations so it means anyone who requires this type of service needs to hire only the most experienced legal translators. Anybody who has any experience viewing legal documents will know immediately how difficult legal translations can be. There are several key challenges that legal translators face when doing this kind of translation work.

1st Challenge

If a court case involves several languages and there are reams of documents linked to the case it is important that the translator is told what to translate and the task should not just be left for the translator to decide. Most legal translators do have extensive knowledge of the law but this doesn’t mean choosing what documents should be translated is part of their job as a translator. The translation process will be completed quickly if the translator is told what to translate.

2nd Challenge

Translations do not necessarily involve just having knowledge about one legal system but many could be involved as the world like its languages is also made up of different legal systems. The legal language of any text or document can be influenced significantly by a country’s culture which relates to its legal system. This means any translator must understand the culture of both the source and targeted languages and the legal systems before a legal translation begins.

3rd Challenge

Being able to create a verbatim legal translation is something a legal translator is expected to do and judges and lawyers often ask for this type of translation to be done. A verbatim translation is when the translator has to look at every single word and translate each one individually while ignoring the meanings and concepts of the source text. Lawyers and judges want to be absolutely certain that a translation is accurate and adheres to the context and meaning of the original. This is precisely the whole point of translators in the first place.

Legal Translators Work with many Kinds of Documents which Include the Following:

Company contracts related to international businesses, which are growing by the day as trade opportunities increase. This to a certain extent is related to the way products are advertised on the internet which encourages international trade. There is solid evidence that emphasises the fact that no business wants to engage with either international trading partners or individual buyers unless they can understand one another.

This means contracts between companies and suppliers have to be written in a mutually intelligible language that both parties can understand. Typically, any contract is legally binding when it has been drawn up and signed by the parties involved. There could be disastrous consequences if the translation ends up in any misunderstanding.

Legislation in a country regarding setting up a business for buying and selling purposes needs to be clearly understood. This means getting a translator to translate everything that needs to be known by the business if no common language can be shared. Proper translations can avoid linguistic and cultural misunderstandings in legislation.

Immigration is commonly part of any business dealings with another country. Representatives or managers may need to permanently or temporarily reside in a new trading partner’s country so that the business can run smoothly in its new environment. The job of a legal translator is to ensure that any legal information required for immigration is in the host country’s language. One thing that immigration departments won’t put up with is badly translated legal documents like birth certificates, college qualifications, job offers and criminal clearances. Any document that is poorly translated could lead to lengthening the immigration processes causing inconvenience to all those involved.

Litigation these days sometimes crosses borders especially when a criminal is extradited because of a crime they were involved in didn’t take place in their country of origin. Extradition paperwork needs to be translated so both officials in both countries handling the extradition can understand one another. All these types of translations depend on accurate communication.

Other Legal Domains where Legal Translations of Documents May be Required from Time to Time could Include the Following:

• international business and corporate law
• labour law
• tax law
• intellectual property law
• bankruptcy law
• environmental law
• criminal law
• personal injury law
• civil rights law
• military law

There is always plenty of legal translation work for the international legal translator because this is a growth area as every business needs a variety of legal documents translated for many different purposes when they operate overseas.