Law Firms

Together, those two conditions determine how a translation supplier should be chosen. What is wanted is not the lowest unit price but predictable delivery and a defined confidentiality regime.

The typical set of documents

Work coming from law firms falls into four groups. The first is documents to be filed with the court; here the translation must be sworn and, more often than not, notarised. The second is correspondence with the client and with the other side; speed is what counts and no approval is required. The third is contract negotiations, and the fourth is powers of attorney and corporate records for use in a transaction abroad.

Which document in this set needs approval to which level is covered in our document guide, and the form in which foreign judgments are recognised in each country in our country guide.

Where does terminology risk concentrate?

In legal translation the risk sits not in the words nobody knows but in the words everybody thinks they know. The existence of a similarly named institution in the target system does not mean that institution performs the same function. The closest equivalent in a case-law system to a concept from the continental European tradition may turn out to be either wider or narrower in scope.

The second area of risk is time limits and conditional clauses. The difference between “if requested” and “immediately upon request” changes the moment at which an obligation arises under a contract. The third is negation: losing one’s bearings among nested negative conditions is the most common serious error in legal translation.

The practical answer is a term list kept for each file. The renderings the firm prefers are settled once and then held to in later files. That buys consistency and saves time at the checking stage alike.

Confidentiality and compliance requirements

A lawyer’s duty of professional secrecy forms a chain that reaches everyone who sees the file. The translation supplier is one link in that chain, and the extent of the duty should be set out expressly in the contract. The minimum expectation runs to four items: a written confidentiality undertaking, a limit on who may access the file, a defined period for retention and destruction, and advance notice of any use of subcontractors.

The personal data dimension needs separate consideration. Litigation files may carry data relating to health, criminal matters and family life. In files of that kind, where the data is processed and by what channel it is transmitted come under just as much scrutiny as the quality of the translation. Sharing the file through a channel whose access can be traced, rather than as an email attachment, is to be preferred.

Conflict of interest belongs under this heading too. For a law firm it is not acceptable for the same translation supplier to be working for both sides of a dispute. Making that situation subject to a duty of notification in the framework agreement heads off any argument that might otherwise arise later.

Capacity, and the decision to split, in urgent files

The operational problem law firms run into most often is a large file that has to be translated in a short time. One translator’s capacity will not stretch that far, so the file is split. Splitting shortens the schedule but creates two risks: inconsistent terminology and loss of context.

How to manage that risk is well established. Before work starts, a term list is drawn up and shared with the whole team; the split follows the subject matter rather than the page count; and the final review is carried out by one person across the entire text. Apply those three rules and a divided file can read as though it came from a single hand.

Another practical question is which part of the file actually needs translating. In some large evidence bundles, not every page carries the same weight. Identifying the critical documents first through a scanning translation, then taking only those documents forward to full translation, brings a marked gain in both time and cost.

Interpreting needs arise in this sector too

What a law firm needs is not always confined to written documents. Negotiations with a foreign party, witness interviews, notarial transactions and hearings all call for interpreting. That service demands a wholly different discipline of preparation from written translation: the interpreter must be introduced to the terminology of the file before the meeting.

An unprepared interpreter will stumble at exactly the moments that matter most in a legal meeting. In framework arrangements that work well, interpreting requests are therefore tied into the same termbase and, wherever possible, met by the team that also translated the file in writing.

The second rule in interpreting concerns the limits of the role. The interpreter does not take sides, does not summarise and does not offer legal interpretation. Holding that line stops what was said at the meeting from becoming a matter of argument afterwards. If the meeting is to be recorded, the interpreter is expected to know in advance, and it should be clear from the outset that transcribing that recording is a separate service.

Ways of working: file by file, or a framework?

Two models work for law firms. The project-based model suits one-off files arriving at irregular intervals; each job runs on its own quotation. The framework model is for firms with a steady flow of work: unit prices, delivery times, confidentiality terms and the procedure for urgent jobs are settled once, and there is no renegotiation for each new file.

The real gain from a framework is time rather than price. On a file up against a procedural deadline, doing away with the wait for a quotation is usually worth more than any difference in unit price. The firm’s terminology preferences also become permanent, so the same decisions are not taken afresh with every new file.

In practice a blend of the two is also used: routine work under the framework, and unusually large arbitration files run as separate projects. We explain our approach to pricing on the pricing page, and we discuss terms at firm level through the quote form.

The information here is a guide; the current practice of the institution concerned is what governs. Because practice can change, go by the requirements in force at the time you apply.