Why Legal Translation Should Never Be Automated

Artificial intelligence and automation are dominating today’s world and with this, businesses are turning to machine translation tools for cheaper and quicker options to translate documents. Although great for informal documents or casual internal communications, automated translations for legal documents can create unfixable damage. Automation may work for informal documents, but accuracy, understanding, and specific jurisdiction knowledge are required for Legal Documents including contracts, court documents, legal notices, patents, and compliance documents. Automated systems lack these qualities.

Translating documents is not simply changing words from one language to another. It requires interpretation of legal meaning and in addition, it must ensure that translated documents are legally enforceable in another country. Litigation, monetary loss, and even legal sanctions can occur from a small, incorrect translation.

Legal Terminology is Highly Specialized

The written language that legal documents are created in is different from the language that is used in everyday interactions. The language of the law is precise, and is etched in old, legal traditions. Many of the legal phrases, or terms, do not translate to other languages.

Machine Translation Programs

• They focus on translating words rather than phrases.
• They ignore the legal terminology of a specific jurisdiction.
• They interpret old-fashioned and formal legal language incorrectly.

On the contrary, translates the legal systems and the differences between the systems of the various countries and modifies the translation respectfully. understands what it means to translate and what it means to interpret and explain a legal concept to keep the meaning of the concept.

One Small Mistake Can Have Major Legal Ramifications

Legal translation has to be mistake-free. One clause translated incorrectly can change the meaning of a whole agreement.

Examples of such risks are:

• The obligations or liabilities in the contracts can be wrong
• The rights and responsibilities can be wrong
• The court submissions can be invalid
• The immigration or regulatory documents can be rejected
• The compliance requirements can be breached

There is no accountability in the systems. When a machine makes a mistake, there is no one to take legal responsibility. A legal translator is, however, accountable and bound to the quality and control of the work, and the work is done with the confidentiality of the translator.

Contextual Legal Accuracy is Unmatched by Automation

The nuances of Legal Translation demand an above average intellectual comprehension of the depth involved. The same word used in translation can mean one of multiple things depending on:

• Legal system (e.g. common law vs civil law)
• Country (jurisdiction) specific rules and regulations
• Purpose of the document
• Background of the case (and relevance)

Translation machines fail to take legal context into consideration. They do pattern recognition and probability analysis rather than legal reasoning. The focus of human translators is on document interpretation as a whole, and by doing so, the translate the document’s content while preserving the legal intention and the practical reasoning of the text.

Legal Documentation’s Confidentiality and Data Security

Legal documentation comprises of different confidential information including, but not limited to:

• Business contracts
• Financial disclosures
• Personal information (PII)
• Intellectual property (IP) information

Automated translation tools increase the risk of legal documents’ confidential information being stored in third party servers, which violates legal documentation’s confidentiality. The privacy and compliance risks introduced by the translation tools further increase with the use of automated translation tools. Also, many freely available (and even some AI-based) translation tools save and or process users’ data to improve their algorithms. This process further risks users’ confidentiality.

Professional legal translation services:

• Comply with confidentiality clauses
• Follow secure data management practices
• Adhere to data protection regulations
• Ensure confidentiality of clients at every step of the process.

Compliance with the Requirement of Certification

Most legal documents require certification or notarization to be considered valid. The machine translated documents are often rejected by courts and government and regulatory bodies.

Human legal translators offer:

• Certified Translation
• Translator’s Certifications
• Notarizations, when needed
• Adherence to court and government legal standards

Automated systems lack the ability to guarantee accurate certifications and legally valid documents. 

The World Has Different Legal Systems

There are many cultures, histories, and legal systems that shape legal concepts. What might be the case legally for one country might not be the same for other countries.

For example:

• The structure of contracts differs for every jurisdiction.
• Legal recourse is not the same for every country.
• The regulation of words is controlled differently by the law.

These are the kinds of issues that automated translation programs do not consider. Legal Human Translators fix this problem by tailoring documents to meet the legal requirements of the destination country.

The Absence of Legal Translation Quality Control for Automated Systems

Machine Translation occurs without verification, validation, legal proofreading or review. A legal review is not done to detect the absence of this and many other errors.

What Does Professional Legal Translation Require?

• Legal proofreading by an expert
• Terminology consistency
• A review process without specialists
• Quality Assurance Final

All of these steps result in the legal translation being reliable, accurate, unambiguous and clear.

Legal Accountability Motivated by Human Reasoning

Legal texts impact decisions, conflicts, and outcomes in the real world. Human reasoning is important to:

• Explain the meaning of sections
• Maintain the purpose of the law
• Spot contradictions
• Realign standards to legal formalism

Automation, as a reasoning and ethic-less machine, also lacks the necessary judgment and legal translation expertise.

When Automation is Allowed (Cautiously)

Automation may be used for:

• Drafting reference documents
• Drafting documents to internally understand the language of foreign documents
• Drafting documents to convey non-legal and non-binding information

However, automation must never be used to substitute human expertise to prepare the final legal translations and the official documents.

Legal Translation Services is a responsible, risky, and highly demanding profession. Despite the fact that automation cannot substitute the legal, contextual, and professional responsibility of human legal translators, it does offer a certain speed and convenience.

Legal translation must never be automated when legal correctness, compliance, and precision are required. Hiring a professional legal translator is not a cost. It is a shield against legal disasters.