Advantages of drafting legal texts
in two languages (English and Russian)

Usually contracts, letters, advices, legal opinions, etc. are prepared in one language and the translation into another language is made afterwords. Alternatively, it is possible to work out bilingual legal texts and documents already made in two languages. Such an approach in foreign trade and business practices can be characterized by several important advantages with regard to the quality of documents to be drawn up.

Firstly, the preparation of bilingual legal texts permits to make both versions of a document more equivalent to each other. Regarding translations there are frequent situations when the full meaning of the original is not clear or when the translator doesn't know the exact translation of a legal term or a phrase in the original or when the target language doesn't contain the exact equivalent. In such cases, a similar or synonymous phrase is usually used in the translation that might result in an inaccurate translation or even in distortion of the meaning. An embellishment of the original contents, non-reproducing of mistakes of the original, and unjustified literal translation are commmon defects of translations. Due to such particulars of translations, business counterparpts might have different understandings of what they have agreed. The working out of agreements and documents in two languages at the same time permits to avoid such problems to a considerable extent by choosing already established translation equivalents.

Secondly, regarding Russian-English and English-Russian legal documents the bilingual approach ensures the correct use of terms, citations, names, wordings of international conventions, publications of the International Chamber of Commerce, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, and other organizations which should be mentioned in documents or whose terminology is used in agreements.

Thirdly, the bilingual method permits to give consideration to mentalities of both parties of agreements and to use in documents legal notions understandable for all participants that is extremely important in agreeing upon their views and successful implementation of international business projects. The equivalent contents of document versions in different languages still don't mean that they will be understood by both parties to an agreement equally. In many cases some things being obvious for a party might provoke misunderstanding, questions, suspicions or even aggression of the counterpart. Drawing up documents in two languages provides an opportunity to detail unclear aspects, explain the same idea from different points of view or repeat it several times to eliminate ambiguities, to use the style and notions of established correspondence between partners, give due consideration to their peculiarities, etc.

And the last but not the least. The final result of bilingual legal services in case of preparation of good documents made in two languages usually requieres less time than in case of involving in this work of two specialists - a lawyer and a translator.

The necessary quality of such legal services is guaranteed by working out of all major legal issues and translation problems by the professional having qualification and expertise - respective diplomas and experience of work - both in international legal consulting and translating.