Legalese question

[Alderman Barnes]

Actually it's a question about translating legalese into English, and more specifically, proofreading contracts.

I've noticed that a lot of words in contracts are capitalised, presumably for emphasis. It's usually the parties to the contract: "the Buyer", "the Seller", "the Customer" and so on, but I've also seen things like "the Building", "the Specifications", and so on.

To my layman's eyes, it looks a bit ugly, but I understand that these terms might need to stand out from the rest of the text.

Is this standard practice, and are there any useful style guides? Where do you draw the line and stop capitalising things?

[Ginger Yellow]

Legalese question

In my experience of reading transaction documents, capitalised terms are defined within the contracts. This may not be universal anyway.

Are you literally translating contracts into layman's English, or are you editing the actual contracts?

[ursus arctos]

Legalese question

GY is right.

The capitalised terms should be formally defined (as in Acme Products Co. ("Acme" or the "Buyer"), either the first time they are used (more common in US style) or in one of the very early sections of the contract (more common in UK style).

The defined terms have legal significance, and I would counsel against putting them into lower case for style reasons.

[Alderman Barnes]

Legalese question

Thanks, chaps - it's a contract that has been translated by a law graduate (who knows what he's doing), but it needs my stamp on it as a certified translation. I'd have asked him, but he's not here at the moment.

I often have to translate German contracts from scratch, too, so I'm looking for some general guidelines.

[ursus arctos]

Legalese question

Pretty much ever translation of a contract I've ever seen has a prominent disclaimer noting that the translation has no legal effect and that original version controls in the event of an interpretative conflict.

In part for that reason, and in part because most legal documents are stilted and full of jargon in the original, I've always tried to preserve as much of the original structure and jargon as possible, to a much greater extent than if I was a textual translation (even of something "legal", like disclosure for a securities offering).

In particular, it is often useful to include the precise original term for key legal concepts, given that their judicial meaning can be very specific (and somewhat different than that of the closest English word).

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Legalese question

The strangest example of that I encounter in my legal practice is the creation of totally new language by translators of ECJ judgments. They have created some totally random new expressions with an accepted meaning in EU legal circles which seems to come from absolutely nowhere. The one example that comes to mind is the expression "margin of appreciation" meaning, in normal English "element of discretion". As in "member states have a margin of appreciation in applying this article of the directive". It has become the standard phrase in all the allegedly English language case reports, as if they are translating for the benefit of the citizens of some parallel universe who speak a language we'd call "nearly English".