Not usually certified — it depends who is reading it
Contract or agreement
Priced by the word, because a contract is prose rather than a form.
Usually about twenty pages — an estimate, not a count
Legal documents
Court judgment or pleading
The longest thing on this list, and the one where a sentence has to survive an argument.
The ordinary part
Who asks for a court judgment or pleading, and what we need from you
Two questions, answered the same way every time, and they are the two that decide whether the job can start today or has to wait for a second photograph.
Who asks for it
Enforcement here of a judgment given abroad, a family matter, evidence in a case, an appeal bundle.
A description of what offices have usually wanted, which is a different thing from a rule. Nobody here is in a position to say what your own matter requires, and the page explaining why is on this site.
What to send
The complete document with its exhibits, in the order the court has them, and the deadline.
The part people find out late
What goes wrong with a court judgment or pleading
Everything above this is the ordinary business of a translation office and could be written about almost any document in the catalogue. This paragraph could not, and it is the reason this is a page rather than a row in a list.
Court structures do not map. A tribunal, a cour d'appel and a Landgericht have no American equivalent that is safe to assert, so the name of the court is kept in the original with a description of what it is, rather than converted into a court that would have heard it here. The same goes for every procedural step in it.
That is the whole of it. If it describes what you are holding, it is worth knowing before the work is paid for rather than afterwards; if it does not, nothing else on this page changes. Either way it is not a thing anybody can settle from a description, which is why a quote follows a reading and an estimate does not.
Length and certification
How long it usually is, and what usually goes with it
Both of these are descriptions rather than rules, and the first of them is a guess: most run to about twelve pages, but that is a figure to plan around and not a figure to pay from.
Length
A page on this rate card is 250 words rather than a sheet of paper, so a dense sheet can be two pages and a sparse one can be half of one. That is why the figure above is written as a guess and why nothing is priced from it.
- The estimator counts from the number you give it, never from the figure above
- A quote follows somebody reading the document, and it is the one to rely on
- Stamps, seals, marginal notes and anything handwritten are part of the length
Certification
Usually needs a certificate of accuracy.
- Certified translation — what a certificate of accuracy actually says
- Notarised translation — a notary attests who signed, and nothing else
- Apostille — issued by a Secretary of State, prepared and lodged by us
What a certificate covers. A certified translation says something about the translation and nothing whatever about the original. We do not verify that a document is genuine, and no certificate, notarial act or apostille from anybody does either — an apostille authenticates a signature and a seal.
An estimate and a quote are different objects. An estimate is arithmetic on what you typed. It is not an offer, it does not bind anybody, and it will move if the document turns out to be longer, in worse condition or a different thing from what it was described as. The quote that follows somebody reading it is the one to rely on.
Other legal documents
Same group, same reader at the other end, and each one has a paragraph like the one above.
Send us the document
A photograph of every page of a court judgment or pleading is enough to quote from, and it is quicker than describing what you are holding.