Legal translation: why machine translations should be avoided

Before detailing the risks of machine translation, it is important to focus on the specific features of this field:

• Highly technical language: legal terminology is precise, codified and often confusing, even for native speakers.

• Differences between legal systems: depending on the country, a concept may not always have an exact equivalent.

• Legal and financial issues: the slightest inaccuracy can activate or invalidate a contractual clause, lead to litigation or render a document invalid in court.

• Confidentiality: the information in legal documents is sensitive and may be confidential.

Given these requirements, legal translation cannot be approximate.

The rise of tools such as Google Translate and DeepL has democratised access to instant translation. Fast and free, these tools appeal to many professionals. But behind the illusion of simplicity lie significant dangers:

Misunderstandings and terminology errors

Engines translate “word for word” or base their suggestions on general corpora, without taking legal distinctions into account:

• False friends and misinterpretations: for example, the English term “liability” is often translated as “culpabilité” or “faute,” when it actually refers to legal responsibility, thereby changing the scope of a contract. Similarly, the word “consideration” does not convey the same idea in Anglo-Saxon and French law.

• Literal translation of concepts with no equivalent: a standard clause such as “force obligatoire du contrat” (contractual obligation), a pillar of French civil law, is sometimes lost or rendered incoherent in machine translations.

Real-life example: the German term “Gesellschaft,” which generally means “company,” has been automatically translated as “society,” causing confusion between a commercial entity and a non-profit organization, with serious consequences in official documents.

Failure to take legal contexts into account

Each legal system has its own vocabulary, rules and customs. Machine translation often ignores these differences: a sentence which is appropriate in one context may become inapplicable or even meaningless in another.

Historical example: in 1851, a treaty between Spain and the Sultanate of Sulu was so poorly translated that each party drew contrary conclusions regarding sovereignty. The different interpretations of the treaty persisted for decades and contribute to the continued controversy regarding the region’s sovereignty. For Spain, the treaty meant recognition of its full sovereignty over Sulu, considering it an incorporation of the sultanate into the Spanish monarchy. For the Sultanate of Sulu (based on the Tausug version of the treaty), however, the document was seen more as a protectorate agreement, with recognition of Spanish supremacy but without any cession of internal sovereignty. This discrepancy also had later legal and political repercussions, notably during the transfer of the Philippines from Spain to the United States after the Spanish-American War of 1898, and more recently in the context of territorial disputes about Sabah.

Confidentiality and security at risk

When using these machine translation tools, legal documents circulate on remote servers, exposing companies to significant data risks:

• Submitted texts may be stored, analysed or even reused for algorithmic training purposes.

• The risk is even greater if the document contains personal data or trade secrets, exposing the company or firm to prosecution for violating the GDPR or professional secrecy.

Irreversibility of errors and lack of probative value

A legal document translated by a machine has no probative value before a judicial or administrative authority. A misinterpreted clause can nullify the parties’ intentions, render the contract void or result in financial penalties. In the event of a dispute, an “AI translation” will never be admissible in court.

Here is a brief selection of real-life examples of the impact of translation errors:

• Incorrectly translated contractual clause: in English, “default judgment” was translated as “judgment par défaut” vs. “défaut de paiement” (failure to pay): the confusion led to a procedural challenge and the judgment’s annulment.

• Use of an ambiguous pronoun (Spanish “su”): errors in the translation of property deeds led to disputes over property rights.

• Sub-translations and omissions: a technical passage left untranslated and then summarised by a machine translation engine resulted in the entire meaning of a clause being lost, which could have rendered the document null and void.

• Cultural and legal barriers: a company used automatically translated terms and conditions in the United States; as there is no strict equivalent to the reference to “unfair terms” in European law, the American version of the document was deemed inapplicable.

Unlike automatic translation engines, the services of a proven professional guarantee:

• Accurate terminology: Birdwell’s expert translators come from legal backgrounds, are trained in the subtleties of international legal systems and can interpret each term in context.

• Intercultural and legal adaptation: they can identify risky clauses, flag specific issues which need to be adapted, ensure consistency between versions and alert you to any differences or incompatibilities in concepts.

• Total confidentiality: Birdwell provides a secure translation service, operated on internal servers, with encryption and contractual confidentiality agreements for each translator, ensuring GDPR compliance and the protection of any trade secrets.

• Quality control and accountability: human translators draw on their expertise; each project is reviewed for compliance with local requirements and industry terminology. In the event of a dispute, their involvement guarantees the probative value of the documents they have produced.

Lessons learnt

Birdwell recently received a request for a multilingual translation from a client who had previously used a machine translation tool for pre-translation. Birdwell’s experts immediately detected major inconsistencies in the source text, which would have led to errors in 13 languages. The project was suspended, the client was informed and the corrected version prevented potentially costly errors in all relevant countries.

Legal translation accepts no compromise: the apparent speed, cost savings and convenience of machine translation tools mask serious legal, financial and reputational risks. For any organisation concerned about security and compliance, human expertise—embodied by Birdwell and its specialist translators—is the only guarantee of flawless international communication.
When in doubt, only a professional can help you to avoid the pitfalls of automated translation and ensure the probative value, confidentiality and security of your most sensitive documents.

When in doubt, only a professional can help you to avoid the pitfalls of automated translation and ensure the probative value, confidentiality and security of your most sensitive documents.