Legal Translation Services and Court Interpreters
For professional legal translation services, it is a good idea to get professional help because only skilled translators can provide accurate translations. Most companies have to deal with legal documents that need to be translated literally. Some are translated literally from English to Spanish, while other documents need to be translated literally from English to a variety of languages. Not all translation agencies provide translators with specialized knowledge in legal translation, but many offer highly specialized services like only accepting original documents in their language and translating them according to client specifications. Not all agencies have similar business practices, but most do.
Professional interpreters can be obtained from companies that only provide interpretation and translation services. Certified translation, which can include legal, technical, scientific or literary contents, is needed when the translation has to be submitted for an international arbitration or court case to an organization or government that requires a certification attesting to the correctness of the translation. The certification also allows interested parties to verify that the translation conforms to the conventions set by the International Labor Organization and World Health Organization. Another reason to use an agency providing interpretation and translation services is the need to have a document translated into a foreign language in preparation for submission to or acceptance by an agency that has its own legal systems and traditions.
There are several different types of languages that an agency can offer translations to. The most common are Spanish, Chinese and English. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Spanish and Chinese are widely spoken countries, making it easier to find translators for these two languages. On the other hand, English is a very widespread language that is written and often used in official and business documents.
It is difficult to estimate the number of legal document translations that are done every year. Since many legal documents are prepared by lawyers or law firms, lawyers often outsource their translations to translation agencies. While this is not always bad, the law firm or attorney may not be aware of the cultural nuances of the languages that are being translated. Many attorneys do not like to hire translators that only translate documents into their native tongue. For this reason, most legal translation services provide documents in a variety of languages.
Using professional legal translation services can help the provider to get accurate translations. The legal documentation that is prepared by attorneys is very complicated. For this reason, most of these documents do not have grammatical errors. It is impossible to check the translation of each word and phrase in a legal document before it is provided to a client. This is why it is important to use professional translators.
Professional legal translation services are most valuable when they are used for complicated documents such as contracts. When these documents are translated, the contract terms must always be matching with the legal terminology. This ensures that the contract terms are enforceable. If the contract terms are not matching then the client is likely to receive invalidated documents.
Many clients wonder if they should pay for the translation services or if they should just hire a professional lawyer to translate the documents. Hiring a lawyer can be expensive. However, if the project is quite complex and the document production is still in progress, the services can sometimes be used. A retainer for legal translation services is often required when working with a new company. The person who requests the retainer will review the company's documents and determine if there are any glaring mistakes. Then the retainer can be paid before the documents are produced to the law firm.
In addition to providing translation services, lawyers can also request that translators be added to their legal translation services or court interpreters. The court interpreters are often full-time workers that are paid a flat fee for each session. Once the contract has been established, the company that hired the individual can request that the same translator or full-time translator be added to their legal translation services or court interpreters as needed. This allows the business to have the best of both legal services programs.
