Category Archives: books

Yet another book I haven’t read

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Dietrich Busse’s Recht als Text first came out in 1992. It looks like a heavy linguistics text.

From Words to Deeds describes the book as a classic on German legal linguistics and links to a video describing its value. The video shows Professor Anne Lise Kjær describing the book – in Danish, fortunately with English subtitles.

For Professor Kjaer, this book is important because it promotes an approach bringing together linguistics, jurisprudence and social science, where the institutional framework of law and the roles of judges, lawyers and lay parties in a trial are essential to understanding and analyzing the language of the law. Professor Kjaer also stresses the importance of text in a lawyer’s work.

It’s a sad fact of growing old that one can begin to say: here is a book I am unlikely to get round to.

Books I have not read/Ungelesene Bücher

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In a variation of the popular bloggers’ posts ‘Books I read in 2013’, ‘Books I read in December’ and so on, here are some books I haven’t read.

First of all, I was in Hammicks law bookshop yesterday because it was still open till 7 pm when I happened to pass it.

I didn’t buy Catherine Barnard’s tome on EU Employment Law although it looked like a good read, with quite some reference to individual countries. I had to admit I would not find time to read it. Had I wanted to, I could have got it cheaper second-hand or on Kindle (though I feel books you want to leaf through don’t work well on Kindle). EU law sometimes gets me down because I don’t know enough about it, and whether working through this book would help I don’t know – though I suspect it would

Nor did I buy Guide to Latin in International Law by Fellmeth and Horwitz. You can look inside at amazon. The Latin used in English law and the Latin used in German law are different, US law also uses different Latin and international law (with which I rarely have to do) probably uses a different one again. Not only that, but the pronunciation varies from country to country. There is some information on this in this book, but probably the two versions given, which are ‘American’ and ‘restored classical’ I think, are not enough to help those of us dealing with UK and German pronunciations. This book is not cheap. I liked the detailed explanations and layout. But again, I felt my life would be full enough without finding time to read it.

Similarly, I did not buy Rupert Haigh’s Oxford Handbook of Legal Correspondence. It’s for non-native speakers of English and it looks very good. I still don’t know how people really learn languages or learn legal English, but if they can learn something from a book, this may be a book for them – as are Rupert’s other books (see his website).

This list seems rather short, as there are very many other books I haven’t read, and it is very much biased to OUP. So here’s more: I saw a newer edition of the Barron’s Law Dictionary by Peter Gifis, which I have always liked, but I suspect the edition I have will suffice. But mine is nearly twenty years old, so maybe I should reconsider. You can get this as a paperback or for Kindle.

I also haven’t read The Oxford Handbook of Language and Law. I haven’t even had it in my hands, though. But I have mentioned it in an earlier post.

This will have to do for now, although I think I could write many more posts on this subject.

John Flood: What Do Lawyers Do?

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John Flood has published a revised version of his book on a Chicago law firm, called Tischmann and Weinstock for the purposes of the book: What Do Lawyers Do? An ethnography of a corporate law firm. You can get the Kindle version, and the paper versions are due shortly.

John Flood has a website and a weblog called John Flood’s Random Academic Thoughts, where there is a post with more information on the book.

I have often wondered what lawyers do myself – the book is about business lawyers rather than litigators, whose role is easier to understand. Just as people who come straight from translation studies can’t usually translate, new lawyers can’t usually act as lawyers, so I never found it out, although the firm in the book sounds very similar to the Jewish law firm where I did my articles in London, down to the arrangement of the offices. The text is rather dry on the surface, a summary of analysis, but amusing between the lines.

The main activity of lawyers is talking on the telephone with persons other than Tischmann lawyers (31.1%). If we add talking with other Tischmann lawyers by telephone the percentage rises to 23.5 percent. The second largest activity is talking face to face with other Tischmann lawyers (12%). Talking with Tischmann lawyers and others takes up 18.1 percent of lawyers’ billable time. If we sum time spent at meetings outside the office (2.6%), office meetings (0.7%), telephoning and talking face to face, we find lawyers spend 53.9 percent of their chargeable time talking. Writing, however, takes up only 20.8 percent (16.3% – drafting; 4.5% – revising). … Research is an activity mainly carried out by associates.

All the office staff are considered.

All the support staff had to log in and out during the day. If they were late, their salaries were docked. Because they perceived their salaries already low, many secretaries left after having their salaries reduced. Much of the office gossip turned on how much of a “bastard” the office manager was, and who was about to suffer his wrath next. Some of the secretaries were aggrieved at how they were treated by the office manager. They felt he conveniently forgot the many occasions when they came in during weekends to help their attorneys, when he decided to dock their pay for some infraction.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest. I think I first read John Flood on barristers’ clerks, a mysterious species – here’s a blog post on them.

Book on German criminal procedure/Der Strafprozess – BDÜ Fachverlag

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The BDÜ publishes a series of books of varying quality. This looks useful – but I haven’t seen it yet: a summary of German criminal procedure written by a public prosecutor, intended for translators and interpreters.

“Der Strafprozess – Eine Einführung für Gerichtsdolmetscher und -übersetzer”

Verfasst von Staatsanwalt Rainer Kock gibt dieser Band Dolmetschern und Übersetzern, die für die Staatsanwaltschaften und Gerichte tätig sind oder werden möchten, einen zusammenfassenden Überblick über den Gang eines Ermittlungs- und Strafverfahrens sowie über die strafprozessualen Rechtsbehelfe und Rechtsmittel.

Der Autor stellt die wichtigsten juristischen Begriffe und auch schwierigen Probleme in Kombination mit praktischen Beispielsfällen so dar, dass Dolmetscher und Übersetzer sie mühelos verstehen und in ihrer Tätigkeit den Verfahrensbeteiligten in ihrer Muttersprache vermitteln können.

Bestellen Sie (102 Seiten) für 14,00 Euro
zzgl. Porto- und Verpackungskosten online:

Hier klicken und bestellen.

Eine Leseprobe steht Ihnen hier zur Verfügung.

Don’t overlook the PDF or html sample they offer. You’ll also find a link to a volume on civil procedure, which I recommend.

The rest of the publications linked (click on Publikationen) may also be interesting. Corinna Schlüter-Ellner’s Juristendeutsch and Treffende Verben in der deutschen Rechtssprache is first-rate. For translators out of German, the Juristendeutsch gives synonyms for weird legalese. These used to be hard to get hold of.

Grant and Cutler dictionaries/Rechtswörterbücher

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I recently received an indirect query from someone studying legal translation in the UK who wants to buy a German-English law dictionary. There was a list of the dictionaries currently available at Foyles, into which Grant & Cutler has now been integrated (I remember Grant & Cutler near Embankment Station, before it moved closer to Oxford Street and now to Foyles). Here’s the link, but it may change in time.

Title: Author: Description:
Recht Fachwörterbuch Kompakt. Law concise dictionary.: German<>English Bugg, S. G. & Simon, H. Approx. 28.000 terms and more than 50.000 translations. With short German and English introductions to the German, British and American legal system.

Rechtsenglisch: Deutsch<>Englisches Rechtswörterbuch für jedermann Köbler, G. approx. 25.000 entries, 485 pages.
Dictionaries: Specialist & Technical: Legal. Published 2007. Price: £19.95

Wörterbuch Arbeit, Recht, Wirtschaft. Dictionary of Labour, Law and Business terms. Horstenkamp, C. Approx. 5,000 terms.
Dictionaries: Specialist & Technical: Legal. Published 2006. Price: £25.95

Wörterbuch Recht German<>English Bachem, W. & Hamblock, D. Approx. 56,000 terms.
Dictionaries: Specialist & Technical: Legal. Published 2008. Price: £42.99

If you click on the first entry, it says the book and CD ROM are temporarily out of print but cost £52. The paperback (I didn’t know about this) is available and costs £30.

In response, I was taken aback at the absence of Romain and Dietl, but on reflection think they may be unavailable and about to be published in new editions.

I’ve written about small law dictionaries before (here and here). I understand why the publishers like them: because they can sell them to German law students. But they are just not big enough to be much use. If the budget doesn’t run to more, I would advise against the Köbler, although I don’t know its latest edition. The editions I have seen have all been based on a standard and peculiar shortish word list, originally created in German and put into English or whatever other language is involved. Of the others, I slightly prefer the Bachem and I don’t find the extra material in the Langenscheidt much use, but if possible you should compare the two yourself.

The Horstenkamp was unknown to me so I bought a copy. It is out of print but can be got second-hand. I actually got a new copy, but I don’t think it’s that easy to find. This dictionary of labour, law and business terms was done by a colleague. It is actually a set of seven glossaries EN>DE and seven glossaries DE>EN. This disqualifies it for me even if it were bigger, as I don’t want to spend so much time leafing through it. True, there are two global indexes in the back, which somewhat helps. The areas are:
Labour – Arbeit
Business – Wirtschaft
Education/Training – Bildung/Ausbildung
European Union – Europäische Union
Law – Recht
Politics – Politik
Health and Safety – Arbeitssicherheit

The labour part looks OK, but in particular the EU and law sections are very small and it looks more like an interpreter’s private glossary. It also has things like
sich schuldig bekennen – plead guilty (looks like a reverse of an EN>DE entry)
vorsätzlich – wilful; premeditated (Vorsatz is intention, not premeditation)
Pflichtverteidiger – duty solicitor (again, was this generated from EN>DE?)
Gewohnheitsrecht – common law (should be custom)