1. Put Google Translate away.
Google Translate has its place, but not in the legal translation space. BMJ found Google Translate was not accurate in important documents, legally, medically, or scientifically. All legal proceedings require a document to be a certified translation. To maintain credibility in your case or legal proceeding, you want a translator who is professional, accurate, and certified. The legal document translation process will be simple with a good translation agency.
2. Compile all the documents that you need translated into one folder or file.
If you aren’t sure which documents need to be translated, check out our Document Discovery process, or contact us for more direction. If you have a lawyer already, you can also ask them about this. Compiling documents will ensure a more efficient translation process, especially when time frames are short.
3. Include any special notes about your documents
Such as the purpose or goal of your translations. What is your case about? What kind of practice area are you working in for this translation? (I.e. divorce, custody arrangements, immigration) This will help your translators understand the scope of the project and get you the type of translation needed.
4. Determine the time frame
Make sure to let your translator know the deadline for filing your documents. Being clear on deadlines always makes the process go so much smoother and ensure timeliness. Luckily, LF Legal Solutions has unmatched partnerships and multilingual professionals that can have a turnaround time of 24 hours.
5. Find a Certified Translation Provider
This may be one of the most important parts as you are putting your legal documents in the hands of someone else, you want to make sure they will do a good job with the translation. You want to find a language translation agency that has experience and uses the best practices in the legal translation industry: LF Legal Solutions only uses translators who have been certified by the American Translators Association, and preferably translators who are natives of the target language country, region, and dialect. Providing notarized certifications with every translation, and suggesting that the original source text be included behind the certificate with every translated-document filing are all things you should look for in legal translation services.
6. Keep the original source text behind the certified translation when filing a translated document.
This will add organization to the whole filing process.