In Dedham, Massachusetts, a dominatrix has been acquitted of manslaughter in connection with the death of a client following a heart attack experienced under her services. The charge was for failing to help him rather than for causing the heart attack. Report from CNN.com:

During his closing argument to the jury, prosecutor Robert Nelson put on a black leather mask with a zippered mouth opening and re-enacted the bondage session.
With both hands, he reached back and clutched the top of a blackboard as if strapped to the rack. Then he hung his head as if dead.
Asher’s lawyer objected, and the judge agreed.

“That’s enough Mr. Nelson,” Judge Charles Grabau said. “Thank you for your demonstration.”

Via Boing Boing

Working Languages is by the mysterious CM, who works for the EU as a translator and interpreter, apparently.

In an entry on Eurospeak, for instance, he discusses an individual’s bad English (‘sensibly lower’ instead of ‘appreciably lower’) which enters EU legislation.

Comments are closed for another blog pause.

I take the liberty of reposting an entry from IPKAT, the trademark blog:

bq. Translations into English

IPKat co-blogmeister Jeremy is looking for a bit of assistance from someone who can translate trade mark cases from Spanish to English with a view to reporting them in the European Trade Mark Reports. Ideally the translator should be a native English-speaker. There is some remuneration, but it is not at all generous. Some occasional help is also needed with German trade mark and copyright cases, also for a relative pittance.

The real rewards are (i) the satisfaction of seeing one’s work in print and (ii) being able to put on your CV the fact that you’ve translated cases for the ETMR and its sister publication the European Copyright and Design Reports. If you’re interested in having a go, email Jeremy here.

The authors of IPKAT are always anxious to obtain the latest decisions in English and often comment on the time it takes to get hold of a translation.

Artikel von Sergey Frank in der Reihe “Internationales Geschäft” – “Verträge auf Englisch“, in FAZ.NET.

An article on the dangers of drafting international contracts in English, the problems of taking over boilerplate expressions uncritically.

I could imagine a large number of problems, but the article doesn’t go into great detail.

bq. Aus Angst vor Vertragsfallen durch falsche eigene Formulierungen übernehmen Juristen oft die traditionellen Vorgaben aus früheren Fällen. Diese sind häufig nicht eindeutig verständlich und/oder passen nicht hundertprozentig auf den gegebenen Sachverhalt.

Mangelhafte Vertragsentwürfe auf nationaler Ebene sind genauso peinlich und schädlich auf internationaler Ebene. Das Risiko erhöht sich durch mehrfache Übersetzungen.
Juristische Texte aus verschiedenen Länden variieren sehr in Länge, Komplexität, Bedeutung und Konsequenz.

(From Handakte WebLAWg)

Article in the Law Gazette by Rupert White on law blogs in the UK (12 January).

Via What’s New on the UK Legal Web?