Legal Translation

A mistranslated clause is not like a typing error: it has direct consequences. The scope of an obligation shifts, jurisdiction moves to a different court, a limit of liability widens. For this reason, translation decisions in legal texts are expected to be defensible.

Why is a difference between systems a translation problem?

Türkiye belongs to the continental European legal tradition and its system is built on codified law. England and the United States come from a case-law tradition. Institutions that serve the same function in these two worlds carry different names, and institutions that carry the same name serve different functions.

The translator’s choice here is one of three: use the name of the closest institution in the target system, leave the term as it stands and explain it in brackets, or build a descriptive equivalent. Which is right depends on what the text is for. In a document to be filed with a court, transparency comes first; in a text for commercial negotiation, it is clarity that matters.

Type of text	What matters most	Typical approval required
Contracts and supplementary protocols	Consistent terminology, clause numbering preserved	Usually none when used between the parties
Statements of claim and their annexes	Absolute fidelity to the source	Sworn, and often notarised
Court judgments	Word-for-word rendering of the operative part	Sworn and notarised; apostille if used abroad
Powers of attorney	The scope of authority must not be narrowed	Notarised
Articles of association	Accurate names of corporate bodies and share structure	Varies by receiving institution
Legal opinions	The structure of the argument preserved	Usually none

Who uses legal translation?

The first group is law firms. In cases with a foreign element, the translation of evidence, correspondence and the documents produced by the other side feeds directly into litigation strategy. The second is the legal and procurement departments of companies signing international contracts; here the translation is part of the negotiation itself.

The third group is individuals: divorce proceedings brought abroad, inheritance matters and applications for the recognition and enforcement of judgments all require legal translation. The fourth is arbitration and mediation, where the files are large and the timetables tight.

How we work

1. Term list. Before work begins, the terms specific to the file are extracted and agreed with the client or their lawyer. A term changed later means retrospective correction across the entire file.
2. Reference material. Contracts translated previously and correspondence between the parties are reviewed; continuity is half of quality.
3. Translation. Clause numbers, cross-references and the definitions section keep exactly the structure they have in the source.
4. Legal review. The second reading is about substance rather than language: the direction of each obligation, the deadlines, the jurisdiction and the conditional clauses are verified one by one.
5. Delivery and record. Terminology decisions are recorded; consistency across later parts of the same file rests on that record.

How is confidentiality protected?

Legal texts routinely carry information that is not yet public: prices under negotiation, litigation strategy, personal data. Confidentiality in legal translation is therefore not a courtesy but a technical condition of the work. The minimum expected in practice is a written confidentiality undertaking, access to the file restricted to the person assigned to it, and a defined retention period once the work is finished.

Where a file contains personal data, where that data is processed also becomes important. In files distributed across a network of freelancers the answer to that question can blur; it needs to be settled expressly in the contract.

The second dimension of confidentiality is what happens after the work is done. How long the file will be kept, on what medium and how it will be destroyed should be set down in writing. Sentences stored in a translation memory fall within this too: a memory built from one client’s contracts should not be used on another client’s work. How that separation is achieved technically is a concrete question worth putting to any supplier.

Recognition, enforcement and proceedings abroad

One of the heaviest uses of legal translation is in giving foreign judgments effect in Türkiye, or in using judgments of Turkish courts abroad. Translation alone is not enough in these files: the judgment must be final, must carry the necessary endorsements, and the chain of legalisation must be complete.

What marks these files out, from the translator’s point of view, is that the operative part of the judgment must be rendered with absolute fidelity. A lost nuance in the reasoning may be tolerable; the smallest drift in the scope of the ruling is not. Rendering the parties’ names, the file numbers and the dates exactly is just as critical.

The translation regime of the destination country is decisive in files of this kind as well. Some countries accept only a translation produced by a translator they have authorised themselves; in that case the work to be done in Türkiye is not the translation but the completion of the document’s chain of legalisation.

Working discipline in bilingual texts

In international trade, contracts are frequently drawn up in two languages and the two texts run side by side. This changes what the translation is for: it is no longer a copy but a binding document in its own right. Translation of a bilingual contract is therefore a process the parties’ lawyers go through together.

Three things must be settled in that process: which language prevails in the event of a dispute, that the terms in the definitions section point to the same concept in both texts, and that the clause numbering matches exactly. Once those three are in place, most of the disagreements over interpretation that might arise later are headed off.

The text continuing to change while negotiations run is a difficulty of its own. Retranslating the whole document with every new draft is both expensive and risky; the right method is to mark the differences between versions and work only on the clauses that have changed. This lowers the cost and stops wording agreed in earlier rounds from being altered unnoticed.

What determines the price?

Three factors push up the unit price in legal translation: the density of terminology, the fact that the second reading calls for legal knowledge, and the confidentiality regime attaching to the file. One factor works the other way: contracts consist largely of recurring boilerplate. With a client we work with regularly that rate of repetition rises over time, and the unit cost falls.

This is why working with law firms under a framework arrangement, rather than job by job, is more efficient for both sides. We explain how our pricing works on the pricing page and the languages we work in on our language pages.

Situations that come up often

• The prevailing language in bilingual contracts. If the text does not say which language governs, differences between the two versions become the dispute. This clause belongs in the contract from the outset.
• An error in the source. A translator does not correct a contradiction in the source text; they flag it and leave it to the person who has to decide.
• Annexes and signature pages. Translating the body of a contract and overlooking its annexes leaves the file incomplete; the annexes often carry the substantive obligations.
• Splitting urgent files. Dividing a large file among several translators shortens the schedule but puts terminological consistency at risk; a final review by one person then becomes essential.

You can tell us the scope of your file and what you expect in terms of confidentiality through the quote form.

This page sets out the general framework; the details of an individual matter may differ. For the requirements that apply, check the receiving institution’s current list of documents.