I have been made aware of a fascinating report, Linguistic Diversity in FTSE 250 legal teams, made available free of charge by Obelisk, a legal support services company based in London. It was sent to me by Nadya Kirichenko, Linguistic Division Director. Over to you Nadya, for an executive summary!
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This guest post is by Caitilin Walsh, a French/German to English translator and President-Elect of the American Translators Association (ATA). The post describes how a legal firm saved on discovery costs by partnering with a translation company.
Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Pedro Satué. He holds a postgraduate degree in Legal Translation from the University of Alicante and a 5-year degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Seville. Pedro is also a sworn (i.e. official) translator appointed by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs – and says “My appointment is so old that the arms on the letterhead still bear the old imperial eagle watching from behind the shield. 🙂 Some other minor diplomas and certificates give evidence of my commitment to the so called Continuing Professional Development – there is no age limit on learning“.
So, over to Pedro for a very educational post…
A fascinating guest post today from Dr Tim Grant, Senior Lecturer in Forensic Linguistics at Aston University in the UK, and the Director of the Centre for Forensic Linguistics there. His main research interests are in forensic authorship analysis and in the conversations which occur between attackers and victims in cases of serious sexual assault and rape. He has publications in both of these areas in both psychology and linguistics journals. His consultancy has largely involved the analysis of abusive and threatening communications in many different contexts including investigations into sexual assaults, murder and terrorist offences. It has also included cases of copyright infringement and academic plagiarism.
Today’s post is neither about translation nor the law as such, but I thought you might enjoy this beautifully illustrated short animation on metaphor – especially in view of the number of metaphors that lawyers use. 🙂
The video is from TED-Ed, one of the growing number of TED endeavours, including TEDTalks (such as those included in these posts about medical patents, language and economics, plain language in Portugal, sleep and success, Google’s N-gram viewer, and crowdsourcing.
Today I am delighted to introduce Steven M. Kahaner, Esq., the founder and Executive Director of the legal translation agency Juriscribe, whose valuable comments some of you may have seen on this blog. Like other legal professionals that read WordstoDeeds, Steven is a lawyer who is genuinely interested in dialogue with translators and linguists. Not only that, but he is an American that builds bridges with Europe! Sorry to all those from the US out there, but you must admit that it’s not so common 😉 This is borne out, amongst other things, by his attending translation conferences (such as this one in Lisbon) and his membership in EULITA (the European Legal Interpreters and Translators Association). You can read more about Steven’s profile here.
I am honoured to welcome a guest post from Maya Hess, the founder of Red T, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of translators and interpreters (T&Is) in conflict zones and other adversarial settings. Comprising a team of volunteers, Red T advocates worldwide on behalf of linguists at risk, raises awareness of their plight and promotes their safety. Below is an interview that is reprinted with permission from GALA (Globalization and Localization Association).
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This guest post by Judy Harrison, courts reporter, is published with kind permission from the Bangor Daily News*. It discusses interpretation for migrants – in languages where professional, qualified interpreters are often not available. I had an interesting discussion about this issue with a person working in international civil rights and methods of training for those speaking rare languages. I’d love to hear your opinions!
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Today Marta Stelmaszak is reporting from the seminar “Justice Interpreting: the Need for Quality Standards” held in London on 23 February last (see here). Marta is a Polish translator and interpreter from the UK and is “devoted to constant development”, including through her involvement on the Management Committee of the Chartered Institute of Linguists and her great blog. Over to you, Marta!
Today’s guest post is by Scott J. Arrington, a partner in the law firm McDermott Will & Emery in the United States. He represents clients in connection with infrastructure development, acquisitions, dispositions and financings, with a focus on international projects in the oil and gas, petrochemical, power and mining industries.
Scott has a particuarly linguistic bent, since he speaks Mandarin Chinese and Spanish as well as English.
From Words to Deeds: translation & the law 
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