Somewhat OT: Consulting agreement in foreign language ok?

The IEEE has essentially already done that, not the same but similar:

It's best to start from there and hammer out your own. Mainly because if you'd take mine that one is very tailored to the safety-critical work I do (aerospace/med/oil/gas). For example, it obligates clients to not use my work without proper agency approvals. On an agreement for an IC guy or similar tasks that would look kind of silly.

If you do the translation when you're already being sued, nobody will believe that the suit didn't influence the translation. Beforehand, you might be better off. However, IANAL and I don't play one on TV.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

IANAL either, though I do "play" them in patent court. Nothing quite like a lawyer arguing technology when he has no clue. Next round is at the US District Court in Dallas, in June. ...Jim Thompson

OMG, you've become a lawyer!

The reason for the King James English (actually, it goes back far further, including French law from the Norman Invasion in 1066) is that these terms have settled legal meanings, settled by centuries of caselaw and precedent.

The translation problem is that for countries whose legal systems did not descend from the English system, there is a different caselaw and system. For instance, the Napoleonic Code (which is used in the US States that were part of the Louisiana Purchase) is codified versus precedent-based.

Joe Gwinn

There is already an electronic "paper" trail to prevent that. The signed English version has already been sent to them as a scanned PDF, and now the foreign language one will follow the same way. I think I should be ok on that part.

No, but my attorney has offered me a to work for him if I ever got bored of engineering (seriously).

My lawyer told me I should have become a lawyer. Logical thinking and clear expression of ideas works well in either field.

Yeah, I've been told similar things, mostly after delivering stuff I wrote in legalese. But then what? We'd be driving the latest model Maserati and be bored stiff :-)

Spehro Pefhany wrote

I've had doctors & nurses tell me I should have been a surgeon after watching me do delicate repairs to their equipment.

Have you ever watched a surgeon try to solder fine SMD parts? LOL.

No. My last surgery was in 1960 and there weren't many SMD parts back then. :)

One of the surgeons doing experimenal work on treating spinal conditions was doing his own little test implantable devices back years ago.

My BSEE Thesis of 51 years ago...

Mid-eighties, so almost 30 years ago. The Saturn V had some early SMT electronics in it:

BTW, inconveniently, even ancient instances of NASA's technical reports are no longer available publicly, thanks to the anti-Chinese pogrom.

"The NASA technical reports server will be unavailable for public access while the agency conducts a review of the site's content to ensure that it does not contain technical information that is subject to U.S. export control laws and regulations and that the appropriate reviews were performed. The site will return to service when the review is complete. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."

The ultrasound system (ATL UltraMark-5) we designed around that time was, for the most part, SMT. As far as we could push it. We were very early adopters and this was my first major industrial job, I've never done any large board designs in through-hole. To some extent we had to teach production houses how to handle this stuff.

The AFRTS TV station at Ft. Greely Alaska had about 15 years of NASA newsreels that I wanted, but they were ordered to be destroyed when the station was closed. A lot of them talked about the technology of Mercury, Gemini & Apollo programs.

Back to OP Q: I do not give a damn concerning the insanity caused by some Mexicans and politicians, the fact is that this is the USA and English was adopted hundreds of years ago and immigrants from ALL OTHER parts of the world chose to learn that language(1), and our laws are based on English. To the best of my knowledge, a contract is legal and ONLY be upheld IF it is in English. Companion translation(s) may be attached and it is strongly suggested that they refer to the ORIGINAL English document(s).