When your firm needs help translating court filings and other important documents, not just any translation service will do. The legal industry is so highly regulated that you can only trust experienced, certified professionals to make accurate translations. 

It’s not enough to be fluent in the languages you’re working in. The top legal translators go through extensive schooling and training just like lawyers, so they can make informed decisions that meet regulations. 

What are the top benefits of a certified legal translator?

Let’s look at the top three benefits of using a legal translation service over more general companies. 

1. Accredited Services

Although every professional translator will stand by the quality of their work, the standards differ drastically when it comes to the law. Many judicial systems require documents to be certified and notarised by a professional service for quality management purposes. 

In-house document translation may not be enough to satisfy these requirements, even if your staff is perfectly fluent in the source and target languages. Only a certified translator is expected to provide this work.

Certification comes with the following assurances: 

  • The translator’s qualifications
  • A sworn affidavit their work is accurate and true to the original
  • Guarantee work meets statutory and regulatory requirements

This type of translation reduces the risk of errors, as certified services will only assign their best legal translators to the job.

2. Professional Experience in Your Field

What makes a legal translator the best at what they do? Experience.

Contracts, patents, and other documents contain some of the most intricate language in the world — from individual terms to grammatical rules and syntax. These complexities can pose a problem for any polyglot on your team. 

Even native speakers can find the law confusing if they’ve never studied it professionally in that specific language. While they might be fluent in your project’s target language, they may only have legal experience in your source language. That means they may not have the technical skills available to make the most accurate results. 

By contrast, a legal translator has several years of industry experience working in both languages. They surpass the average native speaker in knowledge, practice, and skill. As a result, they’ll convert text from one language to the next without changing its meaning, so your firm can move forward with your case fully informed. 

3. Accuracy Under Pressure

Sometimes, your industry works on tight timelines. Things can change rapidly after a project gets on its way — new addendums might be added, clauses may be removed, or fresh evidence is unearthed. 

Experienced services are familiar with these disruptions. They employ a large roster of legal translators that can join a project should deadlines change unexpectedly. In some cases, these additional translators can cut your turnaround time in half, so you can meet your targets without sacrificing quality or accuracy.

Risks of using non-certified legal translation services

The risk of using non-certified legal translations can be massive and can have severe consequences. For instance, if the translations are not officially certified, they might be rejected during the court proceedings and can have a negative outcome. In some cases, documents like marriage certificate, degree or medical reports have to be officially certified by a translation agency in order to those translations to be accepted. Without certified translations, those translations can’t be accepted resulting in unnecessary delays. In a nutshell, it is important to check and be assured that the company providing translation services is able to provide certified translations in order to avoid any mishaps or inconvenience. 

The Takeaway: Your Firm Needs a Qualified Partner

While any established translation service will deliver professional work, only those with deep knowledge of your field can make informed, accurate translations. So the next time you need help with foreign language documents, reach out to a certified translation company that offers specialized services.