Resources
Legal English resources for lawyers and law students
TransLegal’s online resources for practicing lawyers and law students are designed to provide reference material when seeking a specific answer to a Legal English question (e.g. the Learner's Dictionary, Common Mistakes and The Drafter) and to provide additional training material for improving Legal English skills (e.g. The Cambridge OnLine Research Course and LexMail).
Except for the dictionary, all of the online resources are free of charge.
Bookmark TransLegal’s free resources for easy reference!
Legal English Dictionary
The first Learner's Dictionary of Law
You don't need a law dictionary for American or British lawyers.
U.S. and British law dictionaries are written for U.S. and British lawyers. Lawyers trained and working in the common law system. Lawyers whose native language is English. They don't use an English law dictionary in the same way as a non-native speaker trained and working in a non-common law system.
A British or U.S. lawyer looking up the word "decree" might want to know the d [...]
Legal English Blog
Welcome to TransLegal’s Legal English Blog
The globalisation of the legal services market fueled by cross-border transactions and international regulatory schemes means increasing numbers of lawyers need to work in English. To meet the ever-increasing demand for Legal English we have launched this blog and a Legal English Dictionary.
Over the past 20 years, since TransLegal was founded, we have seen a tremendous amount of development in the field of Legal English. This develo [...]
Legal English Teaching Support
Free teaching resources for Legal English teachers
LETS is a tool to help language teachers teach Legal English. It does this in basically two ways:
It provides help in understanding the law and how lawyers work through clear and concise summaries of the areas of the law covered in the International Legal English course book and the ILEC examination.
It provides additional materials for classroom use to supplement those available in the International Legal English course book, th [...]
Grammar and Writing
Helpful tips and links to useful websites on English grammar and writing
The information under the links to the left provides short grammar and writing tips as well as links to websites on the Internet that offer further help in English. [...]
Cambridge OnLine Research Course
This course is currently being upgraded and will be available shortly.
A free online course on how to use the Internet to research Legal English questions
By TransLegal and Cambridge University Press
These online tasks are an extension of the International Legal English coursebook published by Cambridge University Press.
The tasks present a number of authentic language problems encountered by legal professionals, and provide strategies that exploit online reference tools a [...]
LexMail
A free Legal English 'word-of-the-week'
Description LexMail is a word-of-the-week email designed to build your active Legal English vocabulary. TransLegal has selected key Legal English vocabulary and provides practical, easy-to-understand definitions, usage tips, and pronunciation guides.
Suitable forAll legal practitioners, law students and administrative support staff.
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Common Mistakes
Avoid the mistakes often made by both native English-speaking lawyers and lawyers whose mother tongue is not English
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Drafter
Drafting tips for writing letters, e-mails, contract clauses, etc.
Writing well in any language is not easy. Writing in a foreign language is, of course, even more difficult. And writing legal texts in a foreign language is perhaps second in difficulty only to writing poetry in a foreign language.
These pages provide free, easy-to-apply tips on various aspects of legal writing. [...]
Financial ABC's
Concise explanations of financial terms commonly used by commercial law practitioners
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The Great Divide
Two countries separated by a common language
England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
– George Bernard Shaw
US and UK lawyers all claim to speak English, but sometimes it's not the same language. These pages highlight some examples where US and British English differ in the field of law. [...]
Legal Latin
The English-speaking lawyer uses Latin terms frequently
The use of Latin in modern legal systems has ancient roots. Today, many observers argue that Latin has no place in modern English, including Legal English. It is claimed that Latin is confusing and pretentious and easily replaced by modern English equivalents.
The fact remains, though, that Latin words and phrases feature prominently in Legal English and many Latin phrases embody legal concepts that are not easily convert [...]
