How Is the Translation of Legal Documents Different from Language Translation? Explaining the Potential of Outsourcing and AI Translation!

1. What Are the Differences Between Legal Translation and Language Translation?

This section provides a detailed explanation from the overview of legal (legal) translation to the differences from general language translation.

1.1 What Is Legal Translation?

Legal translation refers to the translation of documents that have legal effect, such as laws, ordinances, contracts, judgments, or internal regulations. Its essential purpose is not merely the transmission of information but the proper transfer of legal effect and the clarification of rights and obligations. Therefore, specialized translation departments and translation companies are required to maintain the legal weight of the original wording while meeting the practical demands for speed through advanced operations.

1.2 Differences from General Language Translation

Legal translation differs significantly in the skills and perspectives required compared to general language translation, which targets everyday business communication.

・Translation of legal knowledge and specialized terminology
Legal terms often have specific legal definitions that differ from everyday language. For example, expressions such as the Japanese terms "immediately," "promptly," and "without delay," or the English terms "shall," "may," and "must," need to be translated precisely based on their legal grounds.

・Knowledge of Foreign Legal Systems is Required
It is essential to perform conceptual substitutions (legal transposition) that take into account the differences in legal systems between the source and target languages. For example, in common law jurisdictions such as the UK and the US, the concept of "Consideration" has no direct equivalent in Japanese civil law. A careless literal translation in such cases may cause serious misunderstandings related to the requirements for contract formation.

・Strict Accuracy
In legal documents, the interpretation can differ based on the placement of particles or punctuation marks. For example, if the limitation clause on damages is mistranslated from "Except for gross negligence" to "Except for negligence," it would result in bearing liability even for slight negligence that should originally be exempted, directly leading to financial harm.

2. Fields Covered by Legal Translation

The fields covered by legal translation are introduced in three main categories.

2.1 Legal Translation (Public Regulations and Litigation Support)

This is the area that requires the strictest accuracy, related to national laws and judicial procedures.

・Scope: Laws, ordinances, litigation and arbitration-related documents, etc.
・Characteristics: Since judgments and evidence materials are directly linked to evidentiary value, precise translation based on an official style is indispensable to ensure there are no discrepancies in the interpretation of every single word.

2.2 Legal Translation (Business Transactions and Corporate Legal Affairs)

Refers to legal documents that arise routinely in the course of a company's economic activities and organizational management.

・Scope: Contracts, corporate legal affairs, finance and investor relations (IR), M&A related documents, etc.
・Characteristics: The main objective is to clarify the rights and obligations in transactions. Especially in M&A and financial practices, a combination of advanced practical knowledge and swift processing ability is required.

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2.3 Internal Control Translation (Governance and Ethical Regulations)

These are documents aimed at maintaining organizational governance and ensuring thorough compliance.

・Target: Compliance regulations, confidentiality agreements (NDA), etc.
・Features: While ensuring accuracy, it is important to use clear and simple expressions so that employees from diverse cultural backgrounds can correctly understand the common standards.

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3. Key Points for Selecting Outsourcing Partners for Legal Translation

The key points for selecting an outsourcing partner for legal translation are as follows. A multifaceted perspective is necessary to ensure not only cost efficiency but also quality and reliability.

・Translation track record in the relevant field
Check whether the provider has deep expertise not only in the broad category of "law" but also in specific fields your company wants to commission, such as intellectual property, labor law, M&A, and finance.

・Supported Languages and Fields
We evaluate whether expansion into multiple languages beyond the main ones is possible in line with global deployment, and whether translators familiar with the legal systems of those countries are on staff.

・Check System
Confirm whether the process includes proofreading by legal specialists or a legal review to verify legal consistency, rather than just self-checking by the translator alone.

・Security System
Contracts and M&A documents contain highly confidential information. Confirm whether there is a thorough system in place to prevent information leaks, such as the acquisition status of ISO 27001 (ISMS) and the security level of the translation platform.

・Supported Formats (Word, PDF, Contract Templates, etc.)
We evaluate whether flexible, practical対応 is possible, such as maintaining the unique layout of contracts, highly accurate reproduction from PDFs, and integration into specific in-house templates.

・Integration with Glossaries
We verify whether there is a system in place that can properly reflect and manage past translation assets (translation memories) and company-specific glossaries.

・Certification Compliance
We confirm compliance with objective quality standards, such as whether the international translation quality standard "ISO 17100" has been obtained.

・Deadlines and Emergency Response
How flexibly and quickly a provider can respond to highly urgent cases, such as contracts with imminent signing deadlines or urgent litigation documents, is also an important practical criterion for decision-making.

4. Can Legal Translation Be Handled by AI Translation?

To what extent can AI translation be utilized in the practice of legal and law-related translation? Here, we organize the benefits and challenges of using AI.

●Benefits

・Leads to time and cost reduction through improved speed
The greatest advantage of AI translation lies in its overwhelming processing speed. It can translate vast amounts of documents in a short time, enabling significant time savings and cost reduction in initial screenings during M&A due diligence and in grasping the framework of standardized contracts.

●Challenges

・Cannot Understand Legal Nuances
Since AI generates translations based on statistical inference, it is difficult to fully grasp the legislative intent behind the provisions or the subtle nuances that influence interpretation.

・Contextual errors, misinterpretation of legal terms, and incorrect conversion of proper names
There are frequent cases where highly context-dependent technical terms are translated as common words, or where the logical relationships before and after are misunderstood, resulting in output with the opposite legal meaning.

・Concerns about information leakage when using the cloud
In environments with insufficient security, such as free translation services, highly confidential legal documents may be used to improve AI models shared by all users, posing a risk of information leakage to third parties.

Based on these advantages and challenges, it is recommended to establish a robust "post-editing system" that combines the speed of AI translation with the accuracy of experts. Creating efficient draft translations with AI and having legal professionals ensure the final legal consistency in a hybrid operation is the practical solution that balances the three elements of speed, cost, and accuracy.

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