A certified translation, a missing page, and a request to backdate
A small law firm instructs you to produce a certified English translation of a nine-page Spanish judgment, to be filed in support of a client's application. The filing deadline is 17:00 on Friday; it is Thursday afternoon. On opening the PDF you find page 7 missing from the bundle, and on page 3 a handwritten court stamp that is partly illegible. The associate asks three things: leave out a passage on page 5 where the judge corrects himself ("- no, on reflection, the second defendant"), because "it's just a slip and it confuses the argument"; date the certificate Wednesday rather than the actual completion date, because the filing portal only accepts documents certified before Thursday morning's hearing; and "just certify it as accurate" without mentioning the missing page, since the client will supply it later. You also recognise the case name: eight months ago you translated witness statements for the solicitors acting for the other side in the same dispute, under a standard confidentiality engagement.
1. Assess each of the associate's three requests and state your response.
Read the worked answer
Omission of the judge's self-correction - refuse. A certified translation is a complete rendering of the document as it stands. The correction is part of the reasoning and may be exactly what the court needs to read; relevance is for the court, not the translator. Offer a translator's footnote instead, which fixes the confusion without altering the text.
Backdating - refuse. The date on the certificate is an attestation of when you did the work. Dating it Wednesday when it is completed Thursday is a false statement made for the purpose of getting past a court's procedural check. Options that respect the deadline: complete and sign tonight, dated today; deliver an uncertified working translation now and the certified version when the certificate can be truthfully dated; or advise the firm to seek an extension - which is their application to make, not your obstacle to remove.
Certifying "accurate" while concealing the missing page - refuse the concealment, but there is a clean solution. Draft the scope so it is true: certify pages 1–6 and 8–9, state that page 7 was not supplied, and mark the stamp's illegible portions. That is transparent, filable and protects you.
Put all three responses in one email before you start work. A verbal refusal that is later reconstructed as consent is the failure mode here.
2. The prior engagement for the opposing solicitors: what do you do, and what may you not do?
Read the worked answer
This is the same dispute, not merely the same industry - the risk is real.
- Disclose before accepting. Tell the new firm, in writing, that you translated witness statements for the other side in this matter eight months ago. Disclose the fact and nature of the engagement only; the content of those statements stays confidential.
- Assess materiality. If your prior work gave you access to information material to the current application - witness accounts, the parties' positions, quantum - there is a genuine conflict between the duty of confidentiality owed to the first client and the loyalty the new client assumes it is buying.
- Check the paper. The earlier engagement letter may contain an undertaking not to act for the opposing side in the same matter.
- Let the client decide with full information, and decline if the conflict is material. A large law firm may have a waiver process; a small firm may not have thought about it.
What you may not do: decide silently that "translators aren't really conflicted", take the job and rely on your own discretion about what you happen to know, or mention the prior client's content while explaining the conflict. Record the disclosure and the outcome.
3. Draft the operative scope statement of your certificate and explain each element.
Read the worked answer
Model wording, to be adapted to the jurisdiction's convention:
I, [name], translator, certify that the foregoing is a true and accurate translation of pages 1–6 and 8–9 of the document described as [title, court, date, case number], a nine-page judgment of which page 7 was not supplied to me. The handwritten stamp on page 3 is reproduced as [partially legible; reading "..."] with illegible portions marked [illegible]. Translation completed [actual date].
Why each element is there:
- "pages 1–6 and 8–9" - the certificate's truth depends on the scope being stated. This is what turns an incomplete bundle from a misrepresentation into a disclosed fact.
- "not supplied to me" - records the reason, which is outside your control and relevant to any later application to file a supplement.
- The stamp reproduced with marks - marking illegibility is disclosure, not failure; inventing plausible text or silently omitting the stamp would both be worse.
- The date - factual, verifiable, not negotiable.
What a certificate does not do: it attests to your translation, not to the authenticity, provenance or completeness of the source document. Say so if the firm assumes otherwise - that misunderstanding is theirs to correct before filing, not the court's to discover later.