Legal industry
Contracts, litigation documents and filings translated by linguists with legal training — because in law, the translation is the document.
In law, the translation becomes the document
When a contract is executed in two languages, or a foreign judgment is submitted to a court, nobody reads the original next to the translation. The translation is what gets signed, filed and ruled on. A single shifted term — “shall” weakened to “should”, “termination” confused with “rescission” — changes what the parties are bound to.
Legal translation therefore demands two competencies at once: native command of the target language, and real knowledge of the legal systems on both sides. Legal concepts rarely map one-to-one between jurisdictions; a translator who does not know that will pick the word that sounds right instead of the concept that is right.
What legal teams translate with us
- Contracts and commercial agreements, including bilingual execution versions
- Corporate documents — articles of association, board resolutions, licensing files
- Litigation documents — pleadings, summons, judicial opinions, expert reports
- Discovery and evidential material, including high-volume e-discovery sets
- Patents and intellectual-property filings
- Foreign statutes, treaties, wills and civil judgments
Why generic and AI translation fail here
Machine translation produces fluent text by predicting likely words. Legal drafting is precisely the domain where the likely word is often the wrong one: terms of art carry defined meanings, doublets like “cease and desist” are not redundant, and sentence structure allocates obligations. An engine also has no sense of jurisdiction — it will happily translate a common-law concept into a civil-law term that a Brazilian or German court reads differently.
There is also the confidentiality problem: pasting privileged material into a public AI tool can waive the very protection the document depends on.
How our legal practice group works
Link Translation has maintained a legal practice group since 2005. Projects go to native-language linguists with legal training — including bilingual attorneys and legal scholars — matched to your specific area of law. Every file receives an independent second review, and terminology is locked in a term base so defined terms stay identical across a 200-page agreement and every exhibit attached to it.
All linguists work under non-disclosure agreements, and translation memory keeps recurring clauses consistent across your matters while reducing cost on repeated text. You receive a fixed quote within 24 hours, including certification arrangements when a court or authority requires them.
Services that fit this industry
Legal teams typically combine contract translation, legal document translation and litigation and e-discovery translation, with patent translation for IP matters. For massive discovery volumes, machine translation with human review is a legitimate triage tool — we scope it explicitly, so the material you rely on is always human-translated.
Frequently asked questions
What legal documents do you translate?
Contracts and agreements, articles of association, court documents and pleadings, discovery and evidential material, patents, foreign statutes, expert reports, wills and civil judgments — matched to translators who specialize in that area of law.
How do you handle confidentiality?
Every linguist on a legal project works under a signed non-disclosure agreement, files are shared through controlled channels, and access is limited to the assigned team. Tell us your requirements and we align the workflow with them.
Can machine translation be used for legal work?
For triage — deciding which of 10,000 discovery documents matter — yes, with human review of what surfaces. For anything filed, signed or relied on in court, humans translate from the start. A statistically likely word choice is not a legally defensible one.
Do you provide certified translations?
Yes. We can provide certificates of accuracy with each translation, and we prepare documents to meet the certification requirements of the receiving court or authority. Tell us the destination and we confirm the exact format in the quote.