Legal translations are challenging for a number of reasons, but perhaps one of the most critical is the need for the purpose, meaning, and actionable content of the translated document to accurately reflect the intentions of the original. Due to cultural differences and variations in languages, a simple word-for-word decoding is insufficient and can result in significant errors and miscommunications.
Legal concepts common to a particular culture represent abstractions of unique legal thoughts and rules within its own system. However, from one language to another, those concepts often have very different meanings.
A lawyer is a lawyer is a lawyer, isn’t he?
Not likely. In the United States, our legal counsel is often referred to as ‘lawyer’, ‘attorney’, or ‘Attorney at Law’. However, in the UK, Canada, Australia, and other countries these roles are more specific: a ‘solicitor’ is a general legal practitioner who advises clients and then communicates directly with a legal specialist advocate—the ‘barrister’—who will argue the case in court.
To convert a document from the United States to Canada, a solid understanding of the specific legal roles is necessary to make an accurate translation. A more significant issue could arise if an English document from the United Kingdom containing ‘solicitor’ was translated to the US version of ‘solicitor’ meaning, “a person who tries to obtain business orders, advertising, etc.”
“Jurisprudence” is based on Latin, so that can’t be misinterpreted—or can it?
Actually, it can. In Latin, ‘jurisprudential’ refers to the study, knowledge or science of law as it is constructed of ‘juris’ from ‘jus’ meaning right and law combined with ‘prudential’ meaning wisdom. In the United States, the term is most commonly used to mean “philosophy of law,” describing methods used to analyze, explain, classify, and criticize entire bodies of law.
In the UK, jurisprudence has two meanings: case law, and philosophy of law and legal theory—the second of which is the more common reference.
In France, however, ‘la jurisprudence’ only refers to case law and legal precedents as does the Italian term, ‘la giurisprudenza’. It’s easy to see how an English document using the term jurisprudence to mean legal theory could easily be translated incorrectly into French as “case law”.
Even a small mistake in legal translation of contractual or other official documentation can lead to disaster including damaged relationships, incomplete or invalid agreements, and unnecessary delays.
How can you ensure your legal translations accurately reflect the original intent?
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