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I’ve heard that you can do well in legal translation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4426 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 9 of 13 24 March 2014 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Legal translators working in international organisations, also referred to as "lawyer-linguists", get a very good salary indeed, but to get there is very hard. Normally it is required that you have both a law degree and a diploma from training as a legal translator. These lawyer-linguists typically work for institutions like the International Criminal Court, the European Court of Justice and the EU institutions, where it is extremely important that translations are legally accurate, i.e. that the legal interpretation of the text will not differ depending on the language version. To get at that level, look at five years of law study combined with another two-three years of translation training and lot of translation practice.
I have a few friends doing this job, and I can assure that it is hard work. They basically spend the whole working week alone in an office producing translations of bills, laws, court judgements etc., checking against national legislation in the countries concerned, pondering over the choice of one legal term or another. It is lonely work, it is stressing (because they have to meet targets on number of pages translated and they have deadlines) and the output has to be perfect. If you think about it just for the money, well, then there are other and easier ways of making money as far as I can see. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| xMachiavelli Newbie United States Joined 3979 days ago 7 posts - 22 votes Studies: Russian | Message 10 of 13 31 March 2014 at 1:10am | IP Logged | ||
I can only speak for the Department of Defense and bigger law enforcement counterparts. Generally you just apply, like you can here for the FBI. https://www.fbijobs.gov/124.asp Can also find job listings here. http://jobs.leidos.com/key/linguist-usa-jobs.html Most require a bachelors degree or an equivalent degree if it was obtained overseas, along with a TS/SCI clearance. Your level of fluency needs to be university level writing in your target language. The biggest money comes from deploying as a civilian attached to a military or government agency in an interpreter capacity, which can be upwards of 6 figures. I would think if it's a medical job you're looking for, that they probably hire freelancers from a trusted company. You could probably just ask Reddit, honestly. Their user base is so huge that people from every occupation post there. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gunshy Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3904 days ago 28 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French | Message 11 of 13 06 April 2014 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | ||
Narcissistic much? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6384 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 12 of 13 06 April 2014 at 3:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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just realistic
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Iwwersetzerin Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Luxembourg Joined 5456 days ago 259 posts - 513 votes Speaks: French*, Luxembourgish*, GermanC2, EnglishC2, SpanishC2, DutchC1, ItalianC1 Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 13 of 13 06 April 2014 at 6:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've been a freelance translator for 8 years, specializing mainly in legal translation. I studied translation at the University of Geneva (one of the oldest and most reputed translation schools in the world) and later got a law degree by distance learning from the University of Paris. It may be overkill to get degrees in both disciplines, but it is definitely a huge advantage. I work for a large variety of clients, international organizations, EU institutions, law firms, notaries, banks, all sorts of companies, NGOs and individuals. The main types of documents I translate are contracts, court documents, articles of association, terms and conditions and all sorts of official documents (birth certificates, criminal records, company registrations, etc.). If this sounds boring, legal translation is definitely not for you ;-)
Yes, you can make a good living as a legal translator, but only if you are good at what you do. Since anyone who thinks he can speak 2 languages can claim to be a translator, there are lots of bad and mediocre translators around. The really good and specialized ones are few, but these are the ones that get the interesting jobs that pay well. In-house translation jobs tend to be rather low-paid, especially in translation agencies. Law firms and government agencies certainly pay better, but these positions are rare. Organizations like the UN or the EU pay good salaries, but you need to pass very competitive exams to enter. In order to work as a lawyer-linguist for the European Court of Justice, you need a law degree. In my opinion, the best option is to set up your own business as a freelance legal translator, working directly with law firms and companies, but it is obvious that nobody is going to hire you if you don't have any credentials and experience. You need extensive practical training in translation and a solid knowledge of the legal terminology in all your languages and the legal systems not only of your own country, but also the countries where your source languages are spoken. So you're not going to become a highly paid specialist legal translator overnight. It takes a lot of time and effort to acquire the skills needed to be at the top of the profession (and after 8 years doing this full-time, I'm still learning something new with almost every translation and I invest a lot of time in continuing education). 7 persons have voted this message useful |
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