Translation For Lawyers

When a will is written entirely in a foreign language or uses foreign words, issues of determining the testator's intent may arise. According to the decision of Lowenthal v. Rome, a mere foreign language translation of the foreign language term is not enough to determine intent as the court has a duty to determine the testator's intent by "looking at the language in the light of the surrounding circumstances." 57 Md. App. 728, 471 A.2d 1102 (Ct. App. 1984).

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As more companies are offering automated translation software programs (also known as "automatic translation", or as "machine translation") that provide foreign language translations aimed at doing away with the need for competent human language translations, done by professional translators, the issue of this evidence’s admissibility is a rather new question of law.

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According to the Federal Rules of Evidence, the Best Evidence Rule requires that no evidence be admitted unless it is the best that the nature of the case will allow. However, when such evidence as electronic discovery documents are presented in a foreign language, they must be translated into English before being filed with the Court. The question that arises in this situation is what is the best foreign language evidence translation: a computer-generated translation, or a translation done by a certified, human translator?

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A recent Thomson West Report states that the global economy has caused a grand shift in the approach to legal discovery. Whereas traditionally discovery involved the requesting and gathering of information within a jurisdiction, with the increasing use of electronic data storage and multilingual communications around the globe, today attorneys struggle with the need to pursue evidentiary discovery across borders.

Continue reading "Language Translation Services, Multilingual Electronic Discovery, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure" »