Common Mistakes People make in Legal Translation in UAE

Keeping in mind the growing economy of the UAE and the versatile population of all cultures residing in Dubai and UAE, legal translations are something that is quite common and popular. While many people are looking into legal translation companies for various reasons, it is important to also learn about the common mistakes people make with legal translation.

Legal translation is a fragile matter. From business deals to lawsuits and crime, the process is sensitive, and there is no room for mistakes as negligence and carelessness can have catastrophic and destructive outcomes both for the legal translation company as well as the person or company involved in hiring it. 

So before taking such a big responsibility of handling something as sensitive as legal translation, both the party hiring company providing the legal translation services in UAE should be well aware of the errors that are commonly made in this process. For that, we have made a list from which you can learn and benefit;

• Only relying on a machine for Legal Translation

Though there is no harm in taking help from technology when we can. A professional legal translation service will always be aware that there are terms in law, better known as the legislature, which has no substitute that can be provided simply by a machine translator.

In fact, when legal documents are involved, machines can provide little help as the level of knowledge and accuracy required for this task can only be handled by a professional. Such a person should not only be knowledgeable about the language and the legal terms but also can understand and process without instructions. In other words, merely a machine cannot perform this task sufficiently well, but an expert human being would be more suitable.

• Not choosing the right legal expertise 

When it comes to translation, the law proves to be one of the most difficult professions to work in. A very high level of legal expertise, as well as an excellent linguistic command, is required for this niche. Therefore only the well experienced and highly professional legal translators can be trusted.

People often make the mistake of saving some money and hiring a less known and less experienced legal translation service. So make sure you make the right choice and hire a legal translator that is well known for its expertise in dealing with tasks such as labor law, corporate law, legal contracts, etcetera. 

• Making translation errors while dealing with legal contracts

With the constantly growing business in UAE and Dubai, the probability of making translation errors in business contractions is high and can cost a large amount of money. International brands come to the UAE every day to make contracts with customers, suppliers, investors, partners, etc.

In this scenario, one can easily imagine casualties and misinterpretation and hence result in substantial financial losses, which will surely be painful for any budding business to handle. 

Therefore legal translation services should be well versed, experienced, and knowledgeable when it comes to dealing with all such contracts to avoid any casual mistakes, which can result in very serious problems. 

• Mishandling terms and conditions

This is very important when dealing with legal translations for international business, something which is common in the UAE. Making a mistake in terms and conditions means your entire legal standing can easily be challenged by suppliers, investors or customers in court.

This will not only damage a business financially but will also blemish the professional reputation of the business. The purpose of terms and conditions is to mainly protect any organization when it faces some sort of professional dispute, so errors made in translation can leave the said organization unguarded from all sorts of accusations.

So make sure your terms and conditions are very accurately translated into the desired language without its meaning getting changed in order to avoid any inconvenience big or small in the future that may prove to be destructive for the business or organization. 

• Keeping legal translation as the last resort 

For your own benefit, it is best to keep in touch with your legal translation service from the very start. Discuss your translation plans and translation projects in detail with your legal translator first, and don’t delay it to the last minute.

This will ensure that all of your business-based terminologies and plans are consistent with the future translated documents as well, and hence the chances to make legal errors will be minimal. 

• Hiring a lot of translation services

It is a famous quotation that a lot of people spoil the broth, and this applies here too. Hiring too many legal translation services for various legal documents means all your legal documents will not be in sync and will not follow a particular pattern, and this way your brand will not be properly recognized.

Hiring a single legal translation service means your translator will accumulate the words which are commonly used in your legal documents and make a glossary for them as dealing with legislatures can prove to be very difficult. This means minimal chances of errors as your translator will be aware of your information in advance and provide you with the best services. 

• Getting stuck in the literal meanings of the legislature

Anyone who has some knowledge of the law will be well aware that there is no such thing as literal meanings when it comes to the legislature. It’s all about a concept, so be warned and don’t fall down this trap.

First, invest and then trust your legal translator as he will not only have the linguistic expertise but will also have the legal knowledge of different terms as falling for literal meanings for legal translations is a red flag for an inexperienced legal translator. 

To put it into simpler words, legal translation in UAE though it may seem like an easy job, can get tricky really fast as it has multiple areas where errors can easily be made. One must conduct comprehensive research before hiring a legal translator and should be aware of all the common mistakes that are made in this aspect.