ILETA is proud to announce the ILETA Conference Speakers and Workshop Trainers 2025.

ILETA REGISTRATION FEES (from 10 July 2025):

BRONZE MEMBERS

• BRONZE MEMBER ONLINE €50 per person
  BRONZE MEMBER IN PERSON (BOLOGNA)                                €90 Per Person

BASIC

• BASIC MEMBER ONLINE €70 per person
  BASIC MEMBER IN PERSON (BOLOGNA)                                    €110 per person

NON-MEMBERS

• NON – MEMBERS ONLINE €80 per person
• NON-MEMBERS IN PERSON (BOLOGNA) €130 per person

NB:

1. All fees include materials and Attendance Certificate.
2. In-Person fees also include: lunch, conference dinner, two coffee breaks on Saturday, and Tour. Friday Meet and Greet is not included in the registration fees and is at participants own costs.
3. IN PERSON FEES DO NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL AND ACCOMMODATION EXPENSES TO AND FROM BOLOGNA

• To register fill in the form here:-ILETA HYBRID CONFERENCE REGISTRATION 2025
• To apply for Basic Membership: –ILETA Basic Membership 2025
• To apply for Bronze Membership – Application for Bronze Membership
• For all other enquiries: Contact us here ILETA Contact Form

CONFERENCE SPEAKERS 

• • • • • • • SPEAKER: PAULINA PIETRZYK-BUSZOWSKI

Conference Presentation ‘Bridging Linguistics and the Law Language as a tool for Justice’

ABSTRACT

This presentation investigates the intersection of linguistics and law, highlighting the centrality of language in shaping legal discourse, interpretation, and the administration of justice. Legal systems inherently depend on language for the articulation of statutes, contracts, and judicial opinions; however, the interpretative nature of language often leads to ambiguity, miscommunication, and contestation.

Drawing on linguistic theories such as pragmatics, semantics, and discourse analysis, this study examines the processes through which meaning is constructed, negotiated, and contested within legal frameworks.

Particular attention is given to the role of forensic linguistics in analyzing language as evidence, addressing issues such as authorship disputes and the interpretation of spoken interactions in criminal and civil cases.

Additionally, the presentation explores how linguistic expertise can support equitable access to justice, particularly for linguistic minorities, by ensuring accurate translations and culturally informed interpretations. The importance of adopting plain language in legal documents is also discussed, emphasizing its role in enhancing accessibility and reducing potential conflicts arising from misinterpretation.

By employing case studies and empirical data, this research demonstrates the profound impact of linguistic insights on legal practices, underscoring the need for interdisciplinary collaboration between linguists and legal professionals. It argues for a reimagining of the role of language in law, promoting justice through clearer communication, inclusivity, and a deeper understanding of linguistic diversity in an increasingly globalized and multilingual legal landscape.

Keywords: linguistics, law, forensic linguistics, legal interpretation, plain language, multilingualism, language rights, justice, legal discourse

ABOUT PAULINA PIETRZYK- BUSZOWSKI, PHD, UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR

 

PAULINA PIETRZYK- BUSZOWSKI, PHD, UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR
A scientist and a lecturer, an author of valued scientific publications, an ambassador of ILETA and a member of a global scientific association WASET, a speaker and an award winner at scientific conferences. a member of international scientific commitees, the winner of Woman of Power Award (2022) and a laureate of The Personality of 2023 : Science.

 

• • • • • • • • SPEAKER SUE LESCHEN

Conference Presentation ‘Cross Cultural Miscommunications in Asylum Application Interviews and Tribunal Hearings’

ABSTRACT

In the area of asylum applications consistency and credibility are everything but, unfortunately they are not guaranteed. They should be, but, for a variety of reasons they are not. One of the main problems is that interpreters sourced by the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice may or may not be familiar with the asylum seeker’s culture, language and/ or dialect.

A classic example of interpreting gone wrong is where the asylum seeker refers in their own language to my “brother” but meaning a close friend and the interpreter unwittingly interprets this as my “brother”. This misinterpretation may now haunt the asylum seeker throughout the asylum process with the worst case scenario being that the Home Office brands them a “liar” and rejects their claim for asylum.

Had the interpreter been au fait with the asylum seeker’s culture, they would have checked if “brother” referred to a blood relative such as a brother or cousin or to a friend or even to someone who practiced the same faith.

Unfortunately, the allocation of interpreters to these sorts of jobs is completely random – there is no attempt to get a good “match” so it is a complete lottery as far as the asylum seeker is concerned. To make matters worse, Home Office and tribunal interpreters are not obliged to do any sort of cultural training resulting in the more experienced interpreters gradually becoming more culturally adept after several years in the hot seat but of course at the expense of their clients in the early years when they were exercising their profession in something of a cultural vacuum.

This sort of problem is magnified where there there is similar ignorance at judicial level. Fair it is not.

ABOUT SUE LESCHEN

Sue Leschen is an entrepreneurial lawyer – linguist who has married her passions for law and languages together. She is the Director of niche market Manchester, UK based company Avocate Legal and Business French Interpreting and Translation Services Ltd (https://www.avocate.co.uk).

Sue not only interprets and translates to and from English but she also mentors legal and business clients who need legal English support in their businesses. Sue is a Fellow of both the ITI and CIOL and has Chartered Linguist (Interpreter) status. She sits on CIOL’s Interpreting Division Steering Group Committee as well as on their Professional Conduct Committee. Sue is an NRPSI registrant and is very active on behalf of public service interpreters in the UK.

• • • • • SPEAKER: ANNA SETKOWICZ-RYSZKA

Conference Presentation ‘Where do lawyers and translators disagree when assessing contract translations?’

ABSTRACT

Legal translation has evolved considerably, from word-for-word renditions to co-drafting. Contemporary legal translators need to bridge the differences between common-law and civil-law concepts to make legal texts, such as contracts, drafted in one legal culture understandable in the other legal culture. They also need to deal with differences in drafting styles: the precise common-law style and the concise civil-law style.

When common law contracts are translated into Polish, decisions include how to render legal terminology, exponents of deontic modality and features of style, such as binomials, trinomials and lists of quasi-synonyms or alternatives, as well as whether (and how) to provide the implied knowledge needed to understand the translated contract.

If we compare corrections that lawyers and legal translators suggest when marking trainees’ translations, we notice different preferences of how to deal with legal terminology (including parties’ names and system-bound terms), modal and quasi-modal verbs (e.g. to agree), as well as multi-word expressions from binomials to strings of words with similar/alternative meanings.

Lawyers seem more tolerant of literal renditions of to agree as consent than of using words from general language which have legal meanings. Lawyers often dislike attempts to make translations more similar to non-translated contracts (using lowercase, changing layout, replacing offer& acceptance with a description of subject-matter) or skipping elements which translators see as redundant, but doubt some correct renditions not accompanied by explanatory notes. Diverging assessments may confuse for trainees, but help them learning to translate for different recipients and different purposes.

ABOUT ANNA SETKOWICZ-RYSZKA

Translator with over 25 years’ experience, specializing in legal, financial and academic texts. Sworn translator of English in Poland since 2004. Legal translator trainer since 2006. Long-standing cooperation with legal publishing houses and law firms, services including translation, revision, and post-editing. Doctoral student at the Doctoral School of Humanities, University of Lodz, Poland. Research interests: legal translation pedagogy; contract translation with special emphasis on boilerplate clauses; plain legal language; machine translation post-editing in the field of law; translation process research; legal translation expertise.

• • • • • • • • SPEAKER: ANNA SOBOTA

Conference Presentation ‘A general Language and Professional Language Relationship in consumer contracts- an illustration of the modern consumer contract drafting’

ABSTRACT

Since legal linguistic studies have been focused on the language of legislative texts, court language, or legal coursebooks (inter alia, Williams, 2005, 2010; Garzone, 2013; Goźdź-Roszkowski, 2024) and sparse attention has been given to the language of consumer contracts, the requirement of transparent language in consumer contracts imposed first by Directive 2011/83/EU and later adopted in the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and 2022 (UK) became a great incentive to examine how contract drafters fulfill this obligation.

Based on a corpus of 30 British consumer contracts (200,000 words) collected online, after 2015, that is, the time of imposing the obligation of language transparency, the paper discusses the contribution of general language in the professional environment in question and explores the linguistic and non-linguistic choices of the contract drafter and their impact on the interpretation process of the contractual text.

Although it emerges that inadequate employment of general language forms in the professional environment poses interpretation obstacles and may expose the recipient to interpretation dilemmas, there are examples of a successful use of general language in the presented heterogeneous speech community.

ABOUT ANNA SOBOTA

I am a translator and interpreter, legal English teacher, full-time assistant professor whose research interests are focused on the language of consumer contracts and expert-to-non-expert communication. 

SPEAKER: STEPHEN RIFKIND

Conference Presentation: ‘Plain English in legal translation The why, where and how to apply plain English rules when translating legal documents into English’

ABSTRACT: Stephen will present the legal requirement to use plain English, when it is relevant and the rules to apply it. He will discuss redundancies, simplification, proper use of modals, tabulation and active sentences. At the end, he will show how to use an inbuilt Word feature to assess if your translation confirms with the rules.

ABOUT STEPHEN

Stephen Rifkind, Gaguzia Translations, is a freelance translator from Hebrew, French and Russian into English. He specializes in legal and financial texts as well as official documents. He is a Recognized Translator by the Israeli Translators Association and has been an English Lecturer at Ort Braude College of Engineering for more than 30 years. His wife translates medical material from English to Hebrew.

SPEAKER: OLGA KOSONOGOVA

Conference Presentation: Challenges in Teaching Legal English with Online Technology

BIOGRAPHY

Olga Kosonogova is an Associate Professor of Southern Federal University Rostov-on-Don,RF and has a PhD in Linguistics (Candidate of Philological Sciences)

Olga has published more than 50 papers (monographs, articles, student’s books) and is the co-author of online-course “Legal Communication: Legal Writing and Oral Communication in the Practice of Law”.

Olga is a Member of the ILETA Scientific Committee

• WORKSHOP TRAINER: SOFIA PARASTATIDOU & TONYA TEICHERT 

WORKSHOP – SUNDAY 7 September 2025 – ‘How To Teach Contract Drafting Using Communicative Skills ‘ .

This workshop is for legal/business English or skills trainers looking to sharpen their approach to teaching contract drafting. In this workshop, we will be demonstrating a practical, hands-on workshop designed for educators who want to help their students trascend into the practical legal writing skills.

Learning Outcomes:  

Participants will learn how to:

• Structure lessons that integrate interviews, critical thinking, negotiation, writing and drafting skills progressively
• How to introduce plain language without sacrificing legal accuracy
• Using real-life clauses and contracts to develop students’ awareness of style, tone, and function
• Designing engaging exercises that simulate client-focused drafting tasks
• Assessing student writing in a way that’s clear, constructive, and aligned with professional standards

We will give you practical tools and teaching tips

ABOUT TONYA TEICHERT

BIOGRAPHY

Tonya Teichert is an American living in Germany who has been teaching Medical & Legal English for 17 years. Her background began in critical care nursing where she used those skills to begin a career as a Legal Nurse Consultant.

She went on to attend law school and upon completion, received her MBA. She worked, primarily, in insurance defense and medical malpractice and product liability litigation. After moving to Germany, she began teaching specialized language courses for both private clients and institutions, including doctors, nurses, nursing students, medical organizations, corporate legal seminars, and university legal programs, as well as training-the-trainer courses for Occupational Health and Safety.

Tonya is ILETA Country Ambassador for Germany and a Member of the Scientific Committee.

ABOUT SOFIA PARASTATIDOU

Sofia Parastatidou is a practising solicitor in England and Wales and Australia. She is a Special Counsel in International Trade and Transport and International Commercial Law/Litigation. Sofia is a member of the New York State Bar, Law Society of England and Wales and the International Bar Association.

She is based in Italy where she has trained lawyers, notaries, accountants and other professionals both online and in person.

She is the President of ILETA (International Legal English Teachers’ Academy) and author of Pearson’s Legal English Textbook which has been adopted by many Italian universities as a primary resource in their legal English courses. 

 

2025-ILETA 3rd Hybrid Conference

‘Language of Law, Linguistics and Practical Legal Skills’

5, 6 and 7 September 2025

ALL TIMES ARE (CEST) ROME TIME

AGENDA

FRIDAY 5 SEPTEMBER 2025

 

Time	Presentation
4.30 pm-till late	Meeting in Bologna for Tour & Drinks (own cost)

 

SATURDAY 6 SEPTEMBER 2025

 

9.45am- 10.00am	Welcome Address	Sofia Parastatidou ILETA President
10.00am– 10.40am.	‘Plain English in legal translation-The why , where and how to apply plain English rules when  translating legal documents into English’	Presenter: Stephen Rifkind (ITA Recognised Translator); Member of ATA (US) and SFT (France)
10:40am – 11:10am	COFFEE BREAK
11:15am – 12:00pm	‘A General Language and Professional Language Relationship in Consumer Contracts-  An Illustration of the Modern Consumer Contract Drafting’	Presenter: Anna Sobota (Translator, legal English teacher, full time assistant Professor)
12:05pm – 12:40pm	‘Where do lawyers and translators disagree when assessing contract translations?’	Presenter: Anna Setkowicz-Ryszka (Sworn translator in Poland. Doctoral School of Humanities University of Lodz Poland).
12:40pm – 13:15pm	Discussion RoundTable: Plain Language Training- Much ado about nothing? Cultural          barriers to simplified language	Moderator: Sofia Parastatidou
13:15pm-15:00pm	LUNCH
15:15pm -15:50pm	Bridging Linguistics and Law Language as a tool for Justice’	Presenter: Paulina Pietrzyk Buszowski  (PHD)University Professor; ILETA Ambassador Poland and Winner of Woman of Power Award (2022)
15:50pm –16:00pm	BREAK
16:00pm-16:40pm	‘Challenges in Teaching legal English with Online Technology’	Presenter: Olga Kosonogavo (Associate Professor of Southern Federal University Rostov -on-Don, RF and co author of online course ‘Legal Communication: Legal Writing and Oral Communication in the Practice of Law’)
	TOUR: WALK AROUND BOLOGNA TOUR CONFERENCE DINNER IN BOLOGNA

 

                                       

SUNDAY 7 SEPTEMBER 2025

WORKSHOP TRAINING

INTERACTIVE TRAINING

‘How to teach Contract Drafting using Communicative Skills’

Time	Presentation	Speaker
10:00am-11:15am	Using Negotiation Skills in Contract Classes	PART 1 – Tonya Teichert  (Lawyer, MBA, ILETA Country Ambassador Germany and Member            of ILETA Scientific Committee, Specialist trainer-the-trainer)
11:15am-11:45am	COFFEE BREAK
11:45am-12:30pm	How to teach Contract Drafting	PART 2- Sofia Parastatidou (Special Counsel, practising solicitor in England & Wales, ILETA                                                                President)
12:30 – 13:00	CLOSING REMARKS

 

                            BONUS                         

SPECIAL EVENT

ILETA PODCAST SERIES

LAWYER LINGUISTS

DATE: 30 September 2025

                                               TIME: 6pm (CEST)                                                   

‘Cross Cultural Miscommunications in Asylum Application Interviews and Tribunal Hearings’

 Presenter: Sue Leschen (Lawyer Linguist, owner of Avocate Legal and Business French Interpreting and Translation Services Ltd)

NB:         All participants at the ILETA Conference 2025, will also be able to participate at this EXCLUSIVE Event free of charge.

• TO REGISTER FILL IN THIS FORM: ILETA HYBRID CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FORM
• TO JOIN ILETA BASIC MEMBERSHIP ILETA Basic Membership 2025
• TO JOIN ILETA BRONZE MEMBERSHIP ILETA BRONZE MEMBERSHIP 2025