English legal stationery /Bürobedarf für Juristen

We are discussing the translation of certificates tomorrow at the monthly meeting of the translators’ association, provided the temperature drops below 35°C. Germany has sworn translators, but each of the 16 Länder / states does it slightly differently. I was thinking about the concrete problem of how to bind multi-page documents together. We are supposed to bind them together so they can’t be separated without it being obvious they have been tampered with. Some translators in Bavaria use white gummy star seals and an elaborate arrangement of notarial string (you can get it in blue and white for Bavaria). My own knowledge of sewing and cords goes back to English solicitors’ practices, however. So here are a few links showing pictures of lawyers’ paraphernalia. As for what sworn translators do, I hope to illustrate that with pictures shortly.The oldest law stationery firm in England, Oyez, formerly something else, now OyezStraker, are sparing with pictures online. But Shaw & Sons, of whom I hadn’t heard, have a good collection of pictures of some things I thought might have disappeared: bodgers (bodkins), with or without an eye – I have one with an eye but very much wanted the one without – still, theoretically one can sew with this one and some green tape; the pink tape that is said to have given red tape its name (a bit of a mystery how pink became red), in which solicitors tie the briefs they send barristers (used to be typed on a huge typewriter that would take foolscap paper – in English, briefs are instructions given to a barrister, wrapped around the other papers in the case, with a fee written on the outside (see previous entry); treasury tags (I remember having to drive a bodger through the corners of a huge bundle of papers, many of them ‘flimsies’, the carbon copies of letters sent out, and then force a treasury tag through the lot); company seals; a variety of self-adhesive seals; and then engrossment paper, because after a contract had been drafted (and amended by both parties in a sequence of coloured inks, first red, then green? then purple? then brown?) it would be engrossed – there is also judicature paper/judy paper, for documents going to court.

Adrian will also have used counsel’s notebooks, always mid-blue and with lined leaves you could tear out, but not with a spiral binding like most tear-out notebooks. I haven’t found a picture of one of those online. US and German legal stationery will have to have their own entries.

One thought on “English legal stationery /Bürobedarf für Juristen

  1. Pingback: Notarial String – pencil talk | pencil reviews and discussion

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