As a lawyer-linguist and legal translator (English-German, French-German, Italian-German) with over a decade of in-house legal experience, I may allow myself to say: Legal translations can be a pain in the neck. You may call me picky, but I usually wasn’t satisfied by the translations I got from professional translators and lawyers alike.

In some cases, the translator clearly wasn’t fluent in legalese, so the translation did not capture the terminological nuances that only a legal expert understands. In other cases, the complexity of the legal language resulted in a mix-up of contractual roles.

But I cannot confirm what many lawyers believe: that lawyers with no translation expertise is a better legal translator just because they studied law. In my personal experience, which is not statistically representative, these translations tend to contain an even higher number of errors – it’s just the nature of the errors that differs.

As a lawyer-linguist and legal translator (English-German, French-German, Italian-German) with over a decade of in-house legal experience, I may allow myself to say: Legal translations can be a pain in the neck. You may call me picky, but I usually wasn’t satisfied by the translations I got from professional translators and lawyers alike.

In my experience as a lawyer, there is clearly a need for professional translators with a strong legal background. This is why I added an MA in translation and interpreting to my degrees in law and political science. I now form part of a rare species: the lawyer-linguist. Read more about my services in my working languages German, English, French and Italian.

Legal translation is said to be among the most difficult forms of translation. And this is not just because legal language as such is complex. What sets legal translation apart from other forms of specialised translation is the colourful spectrum of legal systems in our world. Take the periodic table: It will be understood by chemists around the world, no matter what language they speak. And now take a legal term – it may even have different meanings within a language, and when you try to find a thorough equivalent term in another language you will most likely fail. And not because you are a bad translator.

Unlike other specialised languages, legal language is not universal, but system-bound. Each legal system has been shaped by its respective history (including influences by other legal systems) and by societal values and norms. It is not just individual legal rules that differ between the legal systems, but also interpretation methods, thinking patterns and processes. As a translator, you need to be able to understand the differences between legal systems on a systematic level and to apply the principles of comparative law to your translations.

When translating legal texts between different legal families, for example from English to German or the other way around, these differences are particularly visible. While Common Law uses an inductive logic based on case law, Civil Law is based on a clearly structured system of abstract principles and norms and deductive reasoning: Courts apply statutory provisions to deduct solutions for particular cases.

Many people see translators as walking bilingual dictionaries. So how come an English-to-German legal translator cannot just give you a quick translation for typical common law terms like trust, tort law or estoppel? It’s simply because these concepts do not exist in the civil law.
In other cases, words may appear to mean the same at first sight, but a closer analysis shows that they are in fact “false friends”. And what’s more: Many of the world’s most widely spoken languages are not only used in one country, and thus one legal system. As a consequence, a legal translation is not just “a translation from German to English” but, for example, “a translation from Austrian German to British English”.

Or again, the term you’re looking for exists in both languages, but the meaning is still different. Such as: What exactly does it mean “to murder” someone? Under Austrian law, murder (Mord) is the act of deliberately killing another person. But under German law, the same behaviour would be considered manslaughter (Totschlag) unless additional elements come into play. And here we’re talking about two neighbouring countries that share the same language, a similar culture and a similar political system.
A good legal translator must be aware of such differences and must take sound decisions when it comes to the question “can I translate X as Y”?

The answer to this question will likely be “it depends”: on the purpose of the translation, the target group and other aspects which can only be considered by a well-trained legal translator, not by any bilingual individual or a computer system.

Do you need help from a trained lawyer-linguist? Contact me today

Can’t you just ask any translator when you need a contract or another legal document translated? Well, it depends: How legally and linguistically complex is the task? What are your quality expectations? Do you need a certified translation?
Professional legal translators bring essential skills that go beyond linguistic fluency:

Need a legal translation that captures both linguistic nuance and legal precision? Get in touch to discuss your project