Legal Translation vs. Legal Transcription: Key Differences

Legal matters of all kinds involve parties that speak different languages or otherwise need to bridge barriers of access to understand one another. Even situations where all parties speak the same language often require transcription for review and study to ensure that the full meaning of a particularly dense concept or perspective is fully and accurately understood by all. Enter legal translation and transcription services, which ensure access in similar yet distinct ways.

In this guide, we’ll explore legal translation vs. transcription, break down their differences, and walk through use cases where each or both apply—and how to leverage them.

Legal Translation: Transferring Meaning Across Languages

Legal translation is, in practice, a broader umbrella encompassing both legal interpreting and translating services. Legal translators and interpreters translate and localize legal proceedings and documents from one language into another, whether in a courtroom (i.e., in real-time) or via asynchronous delivery. Rather than simply transliterating, legal translators and interpreters seek to communicate connotations and other contextual elements that come with fluency.

In this way, legal translation can be much more complicated than it seems. Legal language is heavily influenced by history, precedents, and other assumptions that only fluent speakers of the original language have. Translating to a target language is a delicate practice of balancing these with idioms or other figurations that communicate similar levels of extra-literal meaning.

All this is to say that it is a far more complex process than a simple translation tool such as Google Translate could cover. It requires experts steeped in both linguistics and legal concepts.

The Role of Legal Interpreters in Legal Matters

Beyond translating documents, another major component of legal translation is interpreting, or translating a live event in real-time. Legal interpreters are positioned within a courtroom, meeting room, or in a virtual meeting, and provide live translation for individuals who communicate in a language other than English, have impaired hearing, or otherwise have trouble following along live.

Legal interpretation typically happens either simultaneously or consecutively—as the original message is being delivered or in short spurts after a sentence or other unit is completed.

One of the instances in which this is especially useful is in depositions, where language and other elements of communication are critical to legal teams’ evaluation of witness’ and clients’ positions, arguments, and trustworthiness. This is why deposition interpreters are vetted carefully, ensuring accurate and fair representation and access to the information by all parties.

Deposition interpreters should not be expected to provide guidance or annotations or contribute materially to a legal matter. However, they play an important role by opening communication channels with people who might otherwise be kept out of the loop.

Concerns Regarding Legal Translation Mistakes or Misuse

While legal translation is, at base, a good and necessary service, there are concerns that come with the territory. All forms of translation inherently change meaning. Things are both lost and gained when switching between two languages, and even the best translation will differ from the original in some unavoidable ways. In a legal context, this can cause problems if important facts or implications are difficult to find analogs or equivalents for in the target language.

Aside from accuracy, there are also concerns related to the agency of people being translated to or for.  As outlined in The Princeton Legal Journal, there are social and legal implications of machine translation technologies when used in the legal system.¹ Low-quality or ill-fitting tools can be abused to create false consent, willingly or not. Assumptions about the need for interpretation or translation can create undue financial burdens, negatively impacting clients.

Working with quality legal services providers helps to avoid and mitigate these challenges.

Legal Transcription: Translating Audio into Documentation

On another level, legal transcription services are dedicated to translating between formats rather than languages—or, at least, not primarily between languages (see below).  Legal transcription is the transfer of meaning from a recorded audio or video format into a text.

By definition, legal transcribing refers specifically to pre-recorded events, such as remote depositions or other meetings recorded via audio or video. Finished documents may include minor edits for context (e.g., removing stammers), or they may preserve inconsistencies with explanatory notes about context. In any case, they make spoken words into a text document.

There is also some overlap here with stenography and court reporting, in which highly skilled court reporters document all words spoken live using shorthand and a specialized stenography machine. A live transcription requires additional stakes and attention to detail, and providers who offer both legal transcription and court reporting services typically consider them separate products.

The Many Forms and Formats of Legal Transcription

Translation takes as many forms as there are languages to accommodate, which also applies to transcription. Plus, there is variation according to audience expectations and specific use cases.

The nine common types of legal transcription services to be aware of are:

• Court official proceedings, formally recording all key statements
• Deposition transcriptions, with or without abridged summaries
• Interrogation transcripts from law enforcement or other investigations
• Emergency call transcripts recounting what was said during the crisis
• Wiretaps and surveillance recordings, typically used for evidence
• Transcriptions of formal meetings kept as official legal records
• Transcript review to ensure accuracy relative to the original event
• Legal dictation, with edits to focus on only relevant information
• Medico-legal transcription, drawing on specific scientific knowledge

Keep in mind that all of these transcription use cases can be combined with legal translation to maximize accessibility across a wide range of language, ability, and communicative contexts.

Risks and Other Considerations of Legal Transcription

As with legal translation, legal transcription services are a positive development on the whole. A legal transcription makes audio or video content more readily available to wider audiences, and this allows for greater equity and representation in legal matters. However, there are risks and other considerations that should inform a firm’s selection and implementation of these tools.

Using AI tools for transcription in meetings and other business contexts raises legal and ethical questions and can lead to breaching trust—or even breaking contractual or legal obligations. As outlined in Bloomberg Law, AI transcription, in particular, needs to be consented to by parties whose words are being transcribed.² In addition, companies employing these tools need to ensure that individuals’ privacy rights are upheld.

Ultimately, transcription is a form of recording, and it needs to be treated with the same caution and care as any other audio communication. Be sure to obtain consent before transcribing any audio communication.

Differences and Similarities Between Legal Translation and Transcription

Legal translation and legal transcription are closely related, but the distinctions between them are important. The biggest differences between legal translating and legal transcribing are:

• Basis – Translation assumes a difference in language, while transcription assumes a difference in format. Translation can be live, whereas transcription is from recordings.

• Standards – Translation always involves a degree of difference, as words and context cannot always be translated with 100% accuracy. Certified transcriptions are 100% accurate. 

Despite their key differences, legal translation and transcription are ultimately about the same thing: access. Both services make communication of or about legal matters accessible to a wider audience by rendering them legible in new ways. Translation and interpretation are specifically about language differences, but transcription also meets this need for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals or anyone else for whom a text document is more accessible than audio or video.

When to Use Legal Translation, Transcription, or Both

In the legal profession, translation and transcription are tied to specific differences in language or other communication abilities. In matters where individuals do not speak the same language, or one or more parties is hard of hearing, translation or interpretation may be a requirement. A transcription may also be required to accommodate deafness or other accessibility issues, such as if an audio recording is difficult to understand. However, it may also be required by default as a supplement to an audio or video recording to facilitate analysis of what was discussed therein.

In many cases, transcription and translation are used together. That is, live interpretation or translation of a recorded event may feed into transcriptions of that same event in multiple languages. Or a transcript produced in English may need to be translated post-facto.

In any case, the best way to get the most out of legal translation and legal transcription services is to partner with a trusted service provider with years of experience—like U.S. Legal Support.

Integrate Legal Translation, Interpretation, and Transcription Today

Legal translation and transcription services provide access to facts and other key elements of legal matters across language and other communicative barriers. Skilled professionals render spoken, recorded, or written English-language statements, arguments, and more into other languages or formats to ensure that everyone involved in a matter has the same information.

U.S. Legal Support offers legal translation, interpretation, transcription, and other services to streamline and optimize law firms’ operations. We’ll help you secure the best results for your clients as efficiently as possible with accurate, accessible transfer of meaning across contexts.

To learn more about how we can help, get in touch today!

Sources: 

1. The Princeton Legal Journal. Man v. Machine: Social and Legal Implications of Machine Translation. https://legaljournal.princeton.edu/man-v-machine-social-and-legal-implications-of-machine-translation/
2. Bloomberg Law. AI Transcription in Virtual Meetings Brings Risks to Businesses. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/ai-transcription-in-virtual-meetings-brings-risks-to-businesses

Julie Feller

Julie Feller is the Vice President of Marketing at U.S. Legal Support where she leads innovative marketing initiatives. With a proven track record in the legal industry, Juie previously served at Abacus Data Systems (now Caret Legal) where she played a pivotal role in providing cutting-edge technology platforms and services to legal professionals nationwide.