Translation of names of legal representatives in the United Kingdom and Poland

Abstract

The paper deals with the problem of translating the names of such legal professions as solicitor and barrister into Polish, and radca prawny and adwokat into English. The author lists most typical translations of the above terms and divides them into groups according to the translation technique they represent. Next, he assesses the translations from the point of view of their accuracy and suggests the best equivalents. To achieve that, he compares routes of entry to the profession of solicitor and barrister in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and to the profession of radca prawny and adwokat in Poland as well as confronts the powers held by those legal practitioners. He concludes that significant differences in the UK and Polish legal systems make it impossible to find fully equivalent words for the names of the legal professions in question. Consequently, if the translation requires high accuracy, the translator has at her or his disposal two translation techniques: either to describe the term (on condition that this can be done in a concise and precise manner) or to retain the original word and provide it with an appropriate explanation.