AI doesn’t have a phone number
There is no global standard for translating legal terminology
Who can you call to check whether it’s right,
where it got its information, or to complain if you disagree?
Who can you call to check
whether it’s right,
where it got its information,
or to complain if you disagree?
TransLegal is in partnership with dozens of leading universities around the world to bring certainty, transparency and accountability to both human and machine translation of legal terminology by connecting the world’s legal languages in one human-curated, multilingual database.
(OH, AND YOU CAN CALL US ON +46 8 791 8944)
+46 8 791 8944)
Our projects
News
Harvard Law School lectures on the WLD
TransLegal CEO and founder, Michael Lindner, and TransLegal's Chief Legal Officer, Michael Krallmann, held two lectures in March at Harvard Law School on the World Law Dictionary.
TransLegal to develop Arabic-English legal dictionary
TransLegal has signed an agreement with Saint Joseph University of Beirut to partner on the development of an English-Arabic legal dictionary specific to the jurisdiction of Lebanon.
TransLegal to develop Zimbabwean legal dictionary
TransLegal has signed an agreement with the University of Zimbabwe to partner on the development of an English-language legal dictionary specific to the jurisdiction of Zimbabwe.
TransLegal to develop Italian legal dictionary
TransLegal has signed an agreement with the University of Turin and the specialist legal translation agency LawLinguists to partner on the development of an Italian-language legal dictionary specific to the jurisdiction of Italy.
Croatia legal dictionary work commences
TransLegal has signed an agreement with the Jean Monnet Inter-University Centre of Excellence Opatija to partner on the development of a legal dictionary specific to the jurisdiction of Croatia.
TransLegal signs agreement to develop legal dictionary for Argentina
TransLegal has signed an agreement with a specialist lawyer-linguist to partner on the development of a Spanish-language legal dictionary specific to the jurisdiction of Argentina.
Our university partners
University of Sherbrooke
Canada
University of Brasilia
Brazil
University of Innsbruck
Austria
University of Rosario
Colombia
University of St. Gallen
Switzerland
University of Szeged
Hungary
Bilkent University
Turkey
University of Turin
Italy
University of Minho
Portugal
Chuo University
Japan
Adam Mickiewicz University
Poland
ISIT
France
University of Ghana
Ghana
University of Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
University of Göttingen
Germany
Connecting the world’s legal languages to solve three challenges:
Certainty
Transparency
Accountability
The problems
You can’t pick and choose
Currently, everyone – including AI and MT companies – is making their own competing and potentially conflicting choices when translating legal terms, thereby tying people (knowingly or unknowingly) to a particular translation.
No black boxes
A fractured translation industry and opaque AI training data leave people with no means of checking how different terminology choices were arrived at and why.
Who you gonna call?
Parties to international legal transactions have no way to discover who has made a given decision, and no opportunity to review or challenge it.
The solution
A single recognized and widely used terminology database to bring certainty to parties involved in international transactions.
A comprehensive, thoroughly documented, readily accessible resource showing the basis for decisions and choices made when communicating legal concepts internationally.
Insight into who has made translation decisions and choices, as well as a robust review system.
What we’re doing
A single database
We are connecting the world’s legal languages through English, by creating bilingual dictionaries detailing and explaining legal terminology from numerous jurisdictions.
10,000+ legal terms
Our database contains jurisdictional dictionaries and related resources for a constantly expanding range of countries. Our aim is to cover at least 100 countries by the end of 2024, with 10,000 legal terms for each jurisdiction.
Expert language teams
We have set up highly-qualified teams of academics, lawyer-linguists and practitioners produce the world’s most sophisticated legal terminology database.
Extensive comparative law notes
Our language teams employ functional equivalency analysis to produce unique notes explaining differences between legal concepts in different jurisdictions.
Definitions and audio files
We provide definitions of legal terms in clear and easy-to-understand English, written at an intermediate level and designed especially for non-native English speakers. Our resources also include over 10,000 audio files explaining how to pronounce English legal terms.
A single, multilingual database for the world’s legal terminology
Any global database of standard translations of legal terminology to and from English must be based on the following:
✓ Expert language teams composed of lawyer-linguists, academics and practitioners
✓ A jurisdictional approach whereby dictionaries reflect not only language differences, but also differences between legal systems (e.g. not just Portuguese-English, but also Brazil-Canada)
✓ Comparative law analysis, including of common law vs. civil law issues
✓ Coordination of terminology across jurisdictions
✓ Comparative law notes explaining paired legal terms that are not functionally equivalent
✓ A robust, user-friendly, single-source platform, easily accessible by browser and app
✓ A system for feedback and questions
✓ Broad endorsement by universities, bar and lawyers’ associations, and governments
✓ Coverage of at least 100 countries
✓ Coverage of least 10,000 legal terms per jurisdiction
Multiple applications
TransLegal’s multilingual, multijurisdictional dataset has a range of potential applications, including:
- Improving machine translation software and other computer-assisted translation tools for the legal sector
- Training specialised Large Language Models (LLMs) for the legal domain
- Expanding the linguistic reach of legal tech software
- Developing AI-based comparative and analysis solutions for the legal sector
- Offering legal language certification for law firms, companies and individuals.