According to its broadest definition, the law is nothing else but the relationship between people. According to a similarly broad approach, translation is the activity that is pursued by a person who is familiar with both the source and target languages with the aim to reproduce the message formulated in the source language that person understands in the target language of the translation with a result that professionals who are familiar with the topic of the message and whose languages skills in the two languages of the translation are at least on the level of the translator acknowledge the finished work as equal with the original, good and authentic, meaning that it expresses the same thing as the original text and in the same way.
This also demonstrates the complexity of legal translation. One can encounter it in almost all domains of life from criminal law through civil law to administrative law. Differences in the legal systems and the correspondence between certain legal concepts and legal relationships in different domains add to this complexity.
Our translation and interpreting agency is active in almost all domains of the law, whether it is the translation of court orders, requests for legal assistance, charge sheets and indictments, minutes of hearing, judgements, summons, subpoenas into a wide variety of languages or various prosecutor’s motions, police orders.
We have obtained considerable experience in the translation of documents, contracts in the fields of private law, family law and the translation of the related pleadings, complaints, proposals, orders and judgments into foreign or Hungarian language.
Solicitors, counsellors-at-law hire our services in various fields. We have already translated certificates of tax identification number, tax certificates, certificates on the assessment of anticipatory tax, trade registries, life annuity contracts, laws, property contracts, specimen signatures, statements of consent, statements of seat, certificates of incorporation, registers of members, articles of association, civil status documents, certificates, diplomas, business quota and real estate purchase and sale agreements.
Civil law notaries often contact us to translate minutes of probate hearings, notarial summons, grants of probate, notarial certificates, debt acknowledgement letters and wills.
We have already translated scientific treatises and studies in constitutional law.
We must also mention agreements, contracts of legal relevance in economic and financial processes as their topic requires sometimes quite a special knowledge which goes beyond the domain of law. Just think about the software licence agreements, which require both legal and IT knowledge as well.
The translators to whom we delegate our legal translation projects have the relevant competence in the topic at hand, or even a degree in law, and this guarantees that the legal and trade terminology of the given field is accurately applied during translation.
Why are we good in legal translation? Well, because we are competent in it.
Since we used to work at the Hungarian Office for Translation and Attestation Ltd. (OFFI) we have many years of experience in translating documents of civil law status and company law, we are familiar with the questions that should be clarified before such documents are “submitted to the authorities” and we also call the attention of our clients to that. Furthermore, we are familiar with the way public bodies function, the importance of adhering to procedural rules, and we contribute to the success of our clients in this respect as well.
