Legal English for Spanish-speaking Lawyers: A Practical Approach to Identifying Spanish-English Functional Equivalents in the Law School Classroom

Abstract

Teaching Legal English to Spanish-speaking lawyers differs from the training afforded to legal translators. Lawyers may not be familiar with language-acquisition theory, and yet their work with English-speaking clients may benefit from exposure to some of the aspects of linguistics included in legal translator training. This article describes an approach to teaching Spanish-speaking lawyers to identify and use functional equivalents, which has proved useful in the classroom and may possibly be adopted by and adapted to the needs of other Legal English trainers.