This is a plug for Hueber Verlag’s Taschenwörterbuch Recht, by Ronald Lister and Klemens Veth, teachers of English and German as a foreign language respectively. Neither of them is a lawyer, but there is an Isolde Kübler involved:
bq. a lawyer with many years experience in English-speaking countries, who performed the textual correction and whose contribution to the translation of German legal concepts was definitive.
ISBN 3 19 116277 3 DE>EN and 3 19 006278 1 EN>DE, published in 2002.The two small books cost EUR 16,95 each (hmm, I got them for EUR 15.95 last year). In view of the problems e.en the big law dictionaries have, one would not expect them to be much use. But they have an excellent approach. Often, a definition is given. Not all the solutions can be used as they stand, but there is a lot of information given to help the translator to find an approach. Of course, the number of words dealt with must be small, but I had no hesitation recommending this for students to use in class.
The dictionary is particularly strong on criminal law terms, or perhaps it is that other dictionaries have too few. Both books have (identical) materials at the back: the EU, the courts in England, the USA and Germany, and the police in Britain, the USA and Germany.
Here are some extracts:
bq. Gesamthandsgemeinschaft f. community of joint owners / tenants; joint tenancy (where each co-owner has an undefined part over which he / she cannot dispose and which reverts to the other co-owners on death); cf Bruchteilsgemeinschaft
bq. esquire (esq.) s Amtssprache 1 (UK) hinter einem männlichen Familiennamen = Herr 2 (US) hinter einem männlichen oder weiblichen Familiennamen als Anwaltstitel Anwalt / Anwältin
bq. boilerplate s. (US) Vordruck; Standardvertrag
bq. fortgesetzte Handlung continuous act / offence (UK) / offense (US); several acts or offences of the same nature viewed as a single act by the law
Of course, the German>English legal translator should have Creifelds Rechtswörterbuch (EUR 42 as a book, EUR 55 as a CD-ROM), but at the same time, any bilingual legal dictionary should have some indication of definitions in it.
At the publisher’s website, sample pages DE>EN can be downloaded
(EN>DE)
It’s me again. Not that I’m not swamped with translation work this weekend.
I see Isolde Kübler’s contribution not translation was definitive. I’m intrigued by the fortgesetzte Handlung that shows up in the like-sounding Gerhard Köbler’s German law dictionary as 1. criminal only and 2. not the full title of Fortsetzungshandlung.
I and my ex-agency colleagues still remember the show-off German/ Austrian law office next to us on the Aldwych rather unfairly slapping down another translator’s ‘continuous offence’ for the term. Eng. criminal law – or rather the Indictment Rules – talk of ‘(sequential) nexus of (serially) related offences’ for joint as opposed to separate or several indictment.
Name-dropping again, I would mention Sir Ivan Lawrence QC who developed the ‘nexus’ theory in the notorious 1960’s Kray Twins’ murder trial.
Isolde Kübler is not given as an author, but her ‘contribution to the translation’ must have consisted in part of contributing words in both languages and pointing out pitfalls.
I think I will make a separate entry on fortgesetzte Handlung.
Was that Buckeridge & Braune (sp?)?
I look forward to the separate entry.
Modesty or the the Eng. laws on defamation dissuade me from identifying the show-offs who also gave me a right old ‘lecture’ on the acceleration of debt maturity effect of Terminverlust under the Austrian General Civil Code.