Legal Translation Services

Legal translation is its own discipline. The translator has to carry the legal effect of a document across two legal systems, not just its words. We organise the work into three practice areas, each handled by linguists who work in that area daily.

Litigation and disputes

Witness statements, foreign judgments, pleadings, expert reports, arbitration documents and disclosure bundles. For exhibits and individual court papers, see court document translation; for hearings themselves we provide court interpreters.

Corporate and commercial

Commercial contracts, M&A due diligence, shareholder and joint venture agreements, regulatory filings and compliance documentation. Employment contracts and powers of attorney have their own dedicated services.

Personal legal documents

Divorce petitions, custody agreements, criminal records and police clearances, and the certified documents that support visa and immigration matters, covered in depth under immigration translation.

Our certified legal translations are accepted by UK courts, tribunals and HMCTS. Each one is delivered with a signed statement of accuracy, the translator's credentials and our company letterhead and stamp, which is the format solicitors and court staff expect to see exhibited.

Certified, notarised or apostilled?

The UK does not operate the "sworn translator" system used in much of Europe: for UK courts and authorities, a certified translation is the correct instrument. Where a document is going to a foreign jurisdiction, we arrange notarisation or an apostille on top of the certification.

Format the court expects

Translations mirror the layout of the source document, including stamps, seals and marginal notes, so an exhibit can be read side by side with the original. Foreign judgments and rulings are translated complete, never summarised.

A contract translation has to do something stricter than read well: every defined term must be rendered identically everywhere it appears, and concepts that do not map one-to-one between legal systems, such as consideration, indemnity or force majeure, must be handled so the clause keeps its intended effect under the governing law.

How we keep terminology consistent

Defined terms are extracted first and locked into a glossary for the project, so "the Purchaser" never drifts into "the Buyer" halfway through a schedule. On bilingual contracts we align both columns clause by clause.

Repeated clauses cost less

Commercial contracts and due diligence bundles repeat heavily: boilerplate, notices clauses, repeated schedules. Our translation memory detects repetition and discounts it, saving up to 50% on large legal documents. You see the saving in the quote before you commit.

Court deadlines do not move for translation. We run urgent legal translation with 24 hour and 12 hour express options for filings and hearings, and we scale to disclosure-size projects when a case demands it.

E-discovery and large bundles

For high-volume disclosure we run parallel teams of legal linguists against a shared glossary, so thousands of documents can be turned around without terminology drifting between translators. Volume work for firms runs under framework agreements with agreed SLAs and consolidated monthly invoicing.

Urgent deadlines

If a bundle has to be filed tomorrow, say so when you request the quote: our urgent translation service exists for exactly this, and certified documents can be turned around the same day when capacity allows.

Legal documents are confidential by nature, and litigation documents especially so. NDA protection is standard on legal work, not an extra. Files move over encrypted transfer rather than email attachments where the matter requires it, access is limited to the linguists actually working on the document, and copies are destroyed after the project unless you ask us to archive them for reissue.

We handle privileged material for law firms week in, week out, and our processes are built around GDPR. If your firm has its own confidentiality terms or outside counsel guidelines, we sign yours rather than asking you to accept ours.

Legal translation is priced per word, with the rate reflecting the language pair and the density of the document: a share purchase agreement is not priced like a standard letter. Certified standard documents start from £35. Repetition discounts of up to 50% apply automatically to repeated clauses and schedules, which materially reduces the cost of long contracts and due diligence bundles.

For firms with ongoing volume

Law firms and in-house teams with regular requirements get volume rates, a dedicated account manager, priority turnaround and monthly consolidated invoicing under our enterprise arrangements. For an immediate price on a specific document, the online quote gives you a fixed figure in minutes, with no commitment.

Legal translation is only as good as the person doing it. Our legal translators hold law degrees, have practised law in their source-language jurisdiction, or have specialised legal translation qualifications, and every legal document is reviewed by a second legal linguist before it leaves us.

Languages

We cover more than 100 languages for legal work, with the heaviest demand in French, German, Spanish, Polish, Romanian, Arabic, Russian and Chinese.

Proof it works at scale

Stokoe Partnership Solicitors, a leading immigration law firm, runs more than 200 certified translations through us every month with a 100% acceptance rate and a 48 hour average turnaround.