Anna Setkowicz-Ryszka
Title of Presentation

Can you expect satisfactory translation or post-editing of legal documents from LLMs?

Abstract

This paper is an off-shot of a workshop for Polish lawyers in which the author tried to examine whether one starts with a detailed comparison of translations of two Polish texts from the field of law – an abstract of a journal article and a power of attorney – into English and one English text – a car rental contract – into Polish.

The translations were prepared using two DeepL engines (classic and new-gen) and two LLM-based tools: ChatGPT and Perplexity in November 2025.

Both LLM-based tools have the potential for improvement compared to neural MT tools thanks to larger attention windows and ability to perform a wider range of tasks compared to MT. Additionally, research has already shown that LLMs have advantages over NMN in translation, including in the field of law, and that LLMs can improve MT output, that is, perform post-editing, which is a cognitively demanding task for humans.

The analysis focuses on the translation solutions for a number of items representing challenges particular to legal translation, such as asymmetrical terminology or the need to explain system-bound concepts relying on knowledge that is not explicitly stated in the source documents. The results confirm limited usefulness of LLMs compared to neural MT engines in terms of preparing text adapted to the needs of target language readers, whether they are prompted to translate or post-edit them. They also confirm the need for human oversight and domain expertise when LLMs are used. Additionally, the assessment of the quality of machine-translated texts as well as LLM’s own versions performed by both LLMs leads to the conclusion that, like the edits they introduce in PE, the focus is on superficial linguistic phenomena, rather than improvement that would be appreciated by a human reader unfamiliar with the source legal system.

Biography

Anna Setkowicz-Ryszka is a freelance legal translator EN-PL/PL-EN with considerable experience in translating, revising and post-editing legislation, contracts, legal and financial opinions, accounting documents, and academic legal texts.

She is a sworn translator and interpreter of English in Poland and a translator trainer delivering practical legal translation workshops in legal translation to legal translator trainees, practicing translators, and lawyers/law students.

In 2025, she completed a doctoral school at the University of Lodz, Poland. Her research interests include legal translation, legal translation expertise (process-oriented research), plain legal language, training legal translators, and various aspects of post-editing in the legal domain.

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