Legal translation is a type of translation services that have to do with official, legal paperwork. This type of translation requires not only excellent language skills but also a great knowledge of the law, diverse legislation and international standards.
Because of the grand spectrum of documents included in the field of legal translations, it is a necessity to take a scrupulous approach when choosing a translation service for your business.
What Can a Service Do for You
While it seems unnecessary, it actually can make a significant difference to your business’ development. Established legal support additionally, on an international level allows you to be open to opportunities such as worldwide shipping or hiring employees from around the world. And if you have already dug in those expansions, a legal translation service can make your work-life tensionless.
Here are the types of translations you can reach out for help with:
- Translation of laws, regulations and their drafts;
- Translation of contracts;
- Translation of legal opinions and memoranda;
- Translation of apostilles and notarial certificates;
- Translation of constituent documents of legal entities;
- Translation of powers of attorney.
These documents also include personal records and social status documents that legally confirm the level of education (certificates of education or diplomas), place of work, or identity card, recommendations and characteristics, police reports, birth certificates, and court decisions on divorce. Trade contracts approved by foreign courts; they are required for the sale of goods or the granting of a trade license.
The task may be complicated by the need to reliably convey the two legal systems and explain the linguistic and cultural differences between two language societies.
An essential step in the process of legal translation of documents is editing the translation text by another person, preferably a lawyer, and some services already include this option. You can also require a certificate of translation for every document they prepared for you. You may want to find out more about legal translation services before choosing one, and it is a significant first step.
The Great Specialist
According to the complexity of performing tasks, it is critical to find a specialist for this job. As the law forms the most basic structure of our society, a legal translator must have a clear understanding of relevant legal concepts, terms and systems of legal concepts when translating any legal document. Details are crucial and must be correctly conveyed in translation – and there isn’t room for mistakes when it comes to legally binding paperwork.
Legal documents and theoretical works need to be translated by professional translators who are specialized in legal translations. As a rule, they have appropriate legal education or, at least, a significant experience in translating legal topics.
These are the translators’ skills you need to consider when choosing a translation service:
- Knowledge of basic principles of the legal writing style of a translation language;
- Competent knowledge of the legal systems of both countries – the source text and the target text;
- Ability to find the meaning of the particular term in the source text if not sure of the equivalent in the target language;
- Knowledge of the terminology of the original document;
- Ability to interpret the text of the original language if it is impossible to find an exact equivalent for translating a particular part of the document, and to convey the original meaning of that part of the source text in the target language as accurately as possible;
- Ability to distinguish between civil and criminal justice systems, since they are not the same, despite the similarity of terminology;
- Understanding the purpose of the translated document, how it will be used. Translators should not shorten the text or reduce the number of words that may seem insignificant since the length of the text and repetitions are stylistic characteristics of the original text and are of great importance.
It may of course affect the cost of the work, but it is essential to remember that errors in the translation of things like work contract text may lead to material damage or even a lawsuit.
Conclusion
For an accurate and reliable translation, it is critical to be adequately prepared and have everything in order. To find legal translation support for your business, you should consider legal translation services because only then you can be sure that your contracts and other legal documents were translated to the full letter of the law. Besides the translation, they can provide you with lawyer support, certificates of accuracy and notarization.
This is why companies choose to delegate these services – even large companies find it more profitable than hiring experts full time.
