For some translation projects, language experts are all you need to create multilingual content. Other projects, though, require additional expertise from specialist translators with experience in working in specific niches.
Legal translation is a perfect example of this, where you need a team of language pros with the right knowledge and experience to produce legal documents for every target language. In this article, we explain what makes legal translation different and what you need from your team of translators.
What makes legal translation different?
The biggest challenge with legal translation is that the legal landscape varies greatly from one language to another. To make matters more complex, territories and cultures within the same language can have different legal environments. So you are rarely translating a document directly from one language into another without having to make certain amendments for local legal requirements.
To ensure there are no mistakes, you need the right translation process in place that gives your language pros access to all of the information required for each document.
Rather than translating one document into multiple languages, you are going to create multiple documents in one language (e.g. English) and ensure every document is accurate. Then, your language experts can translate those documents into each target language and this will deliver legal content that is proofed for each target audience.
What do you need from legal translators?
Above all, you need specialist legal translators with experience in handling this kind of project. You also want language pros who have extensive knowledge of the legal sector and the specialist terminology used in each target language/market. Legal texts are open to interpretation and the less clarity your documents retain, the greater the risk becomes that your intended meaning will be lost in translation.
You don’t want your T&Cs being deemed null and void because the translations aren’t clear enough, for example.
It is also important to remember that legal translation isn’t something that is limited to the courtroom or big business boardrooms. In the digital age, every business needs to have its own terms and conditions, privacy policy and systems in place to ensure they are legally compliant in every market they operate in.
For brands operating in overseas markets, potential customers need to have access to the necessary legal information. Likewise, employees need access to translated legal information to make sure they know how legal compliance varies from market to market.
Legal translation is about delivering this content to the right places, in the right language – whether that means customer rights documentation or legal requirements in training material for customer service teams.
As always, you also need the right tools to make the translation process as fast as possible while maintaining 100% accuracy and consistency across every project.
If your business needs specialist legal translation services, please contact the legal team at translate plus and they will be able to guide you through the whole process.