This is actually a key case from English contract law – but at the same time almost unbelievable. Apologies to any readers who know all about the case already.
It is the story of two ships with identical names, doing an identical voyage, carrying identical cargoes. One the parties involved is even called Raffles (for those who don’t know him, there was a ‘gentleman thief’ character of the same name, created by a relative of Conan Doyle).
Suspend your disbelief for a moment, and read on…
A very interesting article in the Law Society Gazette last week about flexible working patterns grabbed my attention. Here is a taster: “The term ‘work/life balance’ has such negative connotations in private practice that some firms have banned it from their vocabulary.” The article deals particularly with the problems female lawyers have, but not only – it also talks about flexibility enabling men to pursue parallel careers as well, “such as writing a book or singing in a choir”.
Translators, on the other hand, rather than having the problem of getting out of the office, sometimes have a problem with staying at home too much. A great post over at Patenttranslator’s Blog – “Translator’s Dementia (TD) – What it is and How to recognize the Signs” includes a lovely description of the typical “home office” :). Jill Sommer, on the other hand, gave some really good advice for those who work at home in her 2009 post “Establishing a work-life balance and overcoming loneliness“.
So, following in the estimable footsteps above, here’s my seven-point guide.
OneCLE Inc. is a State Bar of California-approved Minimum Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) provider. The owner used to be a senior executive at FindLaw. The OneCLE website makes available a host of contracts in English that have been filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, neatly classified into 282 categories including, but not limited to 😉
A thought-provoking guest post today from Tony Rosado, of Rosado Professional Solutions in Chicago. Tony has been a freelance conference interpreter for almost 30 years and is Federally, Colorado, and New Mexico certified. He also qualified as an attorney from the Escuela Libre de Derecho in Mexico City. You may also be interested in his English/Spanish blog.
Over to you, Tony!
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms a couple of weeks ago, lawyers and other members of the legal community in Ottawa organized a flash mob and danced a choreographed piece wearing bright green t-shirts.
Other flash mobs were organized all over Canada by the Canadian Bar Association. If you want to learn the dance routine, click and enjoy. 🙂
You can read more about the event here.
Who says the legal profession is stuffy?
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By the way, here is the Wordnik definition of ‘flash mob’, just in case you need it: http://www.wordnik.com/words/flashmob
A few days ago I realized that I hadn’t included a book review for quite a while. Although this book was published in 2002, it is still really useful, and as far as I can tell, about the only one on the market to be such a comprehensive theoretical reference whilst being totally accessible and clearly written. When I read it, I gobbled it down in just a couple of days. It covers English, Spanish, French and German, but would probably also be of use to people working from other languages into English.
This is what the publisher, St Jerome, has to say: “The scope of the book makes it useful not only for would-be translators, but also as a reference source to anyone with a background in any of the languages used in the book, who would find the explanations and glossed terminology an aid to becoming familiar with the English legal system and vocabulary. It could also serve as a basic introductory text to anyone with an interest in legal English. (Lucy Cox, International Journal of Legal Information)”
Here is a link to the publisher’s contents page so you can see whether it might be of use to you.
I don’t fully agree with plain language campaigns as regards legal documents – I guess I go along with those who say that the law has to be precise enough and should be interpreted by experts – i.e. lawyers and the judiciary rather than non-specialists – but I certainly think that a lot can be (and is being) done to make legal language more accessible where possible.
Due to the release of new data, the translation memories made available by the Directorate-General for Translation at the European Commission Joint Research Centre have tripled in size.
The Portsmouth Translation Conference in the UK – “Those Who Can, Teach’: Translation, Interpreting and Training” – has been moved ahead by one week to November 10 2012 due to events beyond the organizers’ control.
You can see my post on the Portsmouth conference here.
In this post, I hope to give you some examples of the legal translation and interpreting degrees available. Please do write in if you know of others that I haven’t included here.
Most are on-site courses, but a number involve distance learning to varying extents.
The information below has been taken from the relevant university websites and direct correspondence. If any details are incorrect, I would be happy to change them upon request from the institution concerned.
I have listed the courses in alphabetical order of their location.
From Words to Deeds: translation & the law 
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