EPSO Lawyer-Linguist study guide
EPSO Lawyer-Linguist · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The EPSO Lawyer-Linguist profile describes a specialist EU recruitment route for lawyers who translate legal texts, typically into a single target language, for institutions such as the Court of Justice, the Commission and the Council. Candidates are normally law graduates with near-native command of the target language and strong reading knowledge of other EU languages. The selection process is usually built around four blocks: translation of legal texts into the target language, legal terminology and EU law knowledge, linguistic and drafting ability in the target language, and EPSO computer-based verbal and numerical reasoning tests. Preparation should therefore be split between language work and law. The EPSO Lawyer-Linguist study guide has 4 sections and about 1,714 words.
01Translation into the target language (legal texts)
The translation paper assesses whether you can render a legal source text into your target language with its meaning, legal effect and register intact. Accuracy outranks stylistic elegance: a polished sentence that changes an obligation, a defined term or a cross-reference loses marks.
419 words, about 2 min02Legal terminology and EU law knowledge
This domain checks that you can name, distinguish and use EU legal concepts precisely - both when translating and when answering terminology questions. You need the hierarchy of norms, the main procedures and the exact English terms for acts, courts and remedies.
437 words, about 2 min03Linguistic and drafting ability in the target language
The drafting paper tests whether your target language is accurate, coherent and idiomatic under legal constraints. Markers look for control of modality, sentence structure, reference, punctuation and EU house style - not literary flair.
422 words, about 2 min04Verbal and numerical reasoning (EPSO computer-based tests)
The EPSO computer-based tests assess reasoning under time pressure, not legal knowledge. Verbal reasoning asks whether a statement is true, false or cannot say on the basis of a short passage.
436 words, about 2 min