Abbreviations can be found in the vast majority of legal documents. While using abbreviations does have its advantages, it can sometimes lead to the opposite effect, i.e. making it harder and more time-consuming to read the text.
Here are our recommendations for an optimal use of abbreviations in your legal documents.
Why use legal abbreviations?
The first advantage of using abbreviations is that they shorten the overall volume of text, making it easier to read.
Abbreviating certain terms will save you time in preparing and drafting your legal document. You'll also save reading time, benefiting both your reader and yourself during the proofreading phase. It should be noted, however, that faster reading of the text is only possible when the abbreviations used are intelligible at a glance.
Recommendations for use
Here are our three tips for making the best use of abbreviations in your legal documents:
- Provide a key to the abbreviation code used, preferably in the form of a table or list. This key will be essential for the recipients of your document, who will not necessarily be legal professionals and may not be familiar with legal terminology.
The use of a key will also be very useful for our expert translators, who will have an exact knowledge of the meaning of the abbreviations in your document and therefore translate them with precision. These abbreviations can then be integrated into your personal translation glossary, ensuring perfect harmonisation across all of your legal translations.
- Don't use more abbreviations than you need. Abbreviate words that are repeated frequently in the text to avoid confusing the reader. Otherwise, the reader will have to refer constantly to the key provided at the beginning of the text, or try to remember too many of them, which will have an impact on ease of reading and the reader's comprehension of the text.
- Do not invent abbreviations, but instead refer to the list of common legal abbreviations. In this article, you'll find a link to a list of the main legal abbreviations. Inventing abbreviations not in common use can make the text harder to understand. Abbreviations should be clear and common enough to be understood by the reader at a glance.