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11 minute read
26 May 2023

The benefits of subtitling for Law

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Automatic subtitles
Manual subtitles

The importance of effective communication in legal proceedings 

In the legal industry, having clear and accurate communication is paramount to success. Whether it’s in a courtroom, deposition, or with clients, being able to understand all parties involved goes a long way in achieving justice. Subtitling is an important tool that can help ensure everyone involved is on the same page with any legal proceedings. It provides an added layer of clarity and understanding regarding any complicated documents or conversations related to the law.

Table of contents

Subtitling in the Context of Law

Subtitles are critical tools for anyone working in the legal industry who needs to understand complex conversations or read through lengthy documents in a short amount of time. In addition, subtitles are particularly useful for people who are hearing-impaired or have difficulty understanding spoken language due to language barriers. By providing subtitles for court hearings and other legal proceedings, it allows these individuals to still be able to comprehend what’s going on so they can make informed decisions.

Let’s see some examples of how subtitles can be helpful in a legal context:

Subtitling for Lawyers

Subtitles allow lawyers to review and analyze court proceedings, depositions, and witness testimonies more efficiently by providing a written record that can be easily referenced and quoted. Subtitled legal content, such as educational videos or webinars, assists lawyers in improving their knowledge and understanding of specific areas of law. Subtitles can aid lawyers in comprehending legal content in foreign languages, ensuring accurate interpretation and understanding.

Subtitling for Judges

Subtitles can be used during live court sessions to assist judges in understanding spoken content, especially in cases involving individuals with heavy accents or when audio quality is poor. Subtitling helps in creating accurate and detailed transcripts of court proceedings, making it easier for judges to review and reference specific parts of the proceedings. Subtitles promote accessibility for individuals with hearing impairments, ensuring their participation in the legal process.

Subtitling for Reporters and Journalists

Subtitles enable reporters and journalists to accurately quote and report on court hearings and legal events, ensuring the precision of the information provided to the public. Subtitles aid reporters and journalists in understanding legal content in different languages, facilitating accurate reporting on international legal matters. By incorporating subtitles into news broadcasts and online videos related to legal matters, reporters and journalists can make their content accessible to individuals with hearing impairments.

Subtitling for Law Enforcement

Subtitles can be used to create accurate transcripts of interviews and interrogations, ensuring a detailed record of the proceedings for investigative purposes. Subtitled training videos and educational materials assist law enforcement personnel in understanding legal procedures, improving their communication skills, and enhancing their knowledge of applicable laws. Subtitles aid law enforcement officers in communicating effectively with individuals who speak different languages, promoting understanding and compliance during interactions.

These are just a few examples of how subtitling can be beneficial in the context of law, as the versatility of subtitling extends to various legal scenarios. A valuable software that can help you get started with subtitling is Amberscript. Not only it is extremely easy to use, but it also offers different services based on your needs: whether you decide to let the software automatically create the subtitles or you prefer to have professional subtitlers handle your file, Amberscript has got you covered.

Enhanced accessibility 

Enhanced accessibility has become an important factor in many industries, and the legal sector is no exception. By providing enhanced accessibility options, more people are able to gain access to the justice system – regardless of their physical abilities or linguistic backgrounds. With the help of these tools, legal providers are able to guarantee a more equitable system for everyone.

In an effort to become more accessible, many legal providers have begun taking advantage of current technology in order to provide enhanced accessibility options. Some examples are:

Accessibility for people with hearing impairments: Subtitling provides accessibility for people with hearing impairments, allowing them to follow and understand spoken content through written text. This ensures that individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing can better understand complex legal concepts, actively participate in legal proceedings and access legal information without relying on others.

Inclusivity for individuals with language barriers: By providing translated subtitles, this type of technology can also help to ensure accurate translations of legal documentation into multiple languages and help those who may not be fluent in a particular language better understand the law. Amberscript can help you translate your subtitles fast and accurately in 18 different languages.

Compliance with legal requirements for accessibility

Subtitling is not only helpful in enhancing accessibility, but it can also help your organization meet legal requirements for accessibility, such as subtitles for video and audio content. It also helps ensure that your documents comply with laws mandating the use of accessible formats. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the United States, and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union are only two examples of such regulations.

All of this ultimately helps your business stay compliant with the latest rules on web accessibility and disability rights. With enhanced accessibility, you can make sure you’re meeting all applicable legal requirements and providing a great user experience at the same time!

Improved understanding and comprehension

Subtitles provide an invaluable service for everyone involved in the courtroom by enhancing comprehension and clarity of legal terminology. They also help bridge any gap between native speakers, non-native speakers, or those with hearing impairments by creating a more inclusive environment. With this technology, understanding complex legal concepts can become much simpler and easier to comprehend.

To better understand complex legal terminology, subtitles can be added to help explain the meaning of words or phrases that might otherwise go over some people’s heads. This makes it easier for viewers to comprehend fast-paced legal proceedings and documentation. Those who are not native speakers of a language can use subtitles to gain greater understanding of the legal content being presented. Subtitles have great potential to improve access to justice for non-native speakers and people with hearing impairments. This technology is beneficial both inside and outside of courtrooms as it provides a tool to make complex legal proceedings easier to understand.

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Using subtitles to facilitate language learning

Subtitles are one of the most effective ways to facilitate language learning in legal contexts. By including subtitles in documents and audiovisual materials, users can read along with the material while hearing it spoken aloud at the same time. This dual-mode approach allows students to become better familiarized with legal terminology and apply it more easily when writing or speaking. Furthermore, subtitles can be used as an additional tool for transcription, helping learners identify words they don’t know within a particular context and further reinforcing their understanding of the language.

Exposure to legal terminology and terminology consistency 

By utilizing subtitles, users can gain a greater exposure to legal terminology. If the subtitles are properly formatted and consistent in their language use, learners can more easily recognize and remember key phrases. This will not only improve comprehension but also help them build up a larger legal vocabulary which they can apply in their own conversations and readings.

Reinforcing language skills through audiovisual materials

Subtitles are also invaluable tools for reinforcing language skills through audiovisual materials. By reading along with dialogue or listening to lectures while watching the visuals, students can take full advantage of the audio-visual combination to further develop their understanding of legal discourse and deepen their knowledge of the language. Furthermore, subtitles can also be used as an aid tool when it comes to practicing and learning legal language, as they allow users to review and revise more easily, thus speeding up their mastery of the language.

Supporting multilingual proceedings 

Amongst the many benefits that subtitling provides in legal contexts, supporting multilingual proceedings is one of the most important. Here’s how subtitles can help:

Facilitating communication in international legal cases: In international legal cases, accurate and reliable communication is essential for a successful outcome. To ensure the highest quality of services in multilingual proceedings, subtitles are often used to facilitate understanding between all parties involved. Subtitles allow people with different native languages to understand what’s said in court without having to use a human interpreter.

Minimizing interpretation errors and miscommunication: Interpretation errors and miscommunication can have significant repercussions in legal proceedings, especially when parties don’t share a common language. By using subtitling, the risk of interpretation errors is significantly reduced. Subtitles provide a written representation of the spoken content, offering a clear and consistent understanding of the proceedings. This minimizes the potential for miscommunication, ensuring that legal information is accurately conveyed to all participants, regardless of their language proficiency.

Strengthening cross-border legal cooperation and understanding: Subtitling contributes to stronger cross-border legal cooperation and understanding by fostering inclusive and accessible communication. When participants can follow the proceedings in their native language through subtitles, they feel more engaged and empowered to actively participate in the legal process. This promotes equal representation and a sense of fairness, ultimately strengthening cross-border cooperation and fostering a deeper understanding of different legal systems and practices.

Enhanced memorisation and retention

Enhanced memorization and retention are significant advantages of incorporating subtitling in the context of law. Subtitles provide visual reinforcement of the spoken content which, paired with auditory stimuli, engages dual audiovisual processing. This is particularly beneficial for legal professionals and students who are exposed to vast amounts of complex information. Subtitles allow them to reinforce their understanding of legal terminology, retain key details from legal proceedings, and improve overall information retention.

Visual reinforcement of spoken content 

One key aspect of enhanced memorization and retention is the visual reinforcement of spoken content. By presenting the spoken words in written form on the screen, subtitling helps reinforce understanding and retention. In a study conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), legal professionals and students experienced improved memorization and retention when engaging in dual audiovisual processing — listening to audio content with subtitles. This finding suggests that the visual cues provided by subtitles serve as a valuable aid in the learning process, as they improve memorization and comprehension of legal documentation, enabling individuals to absorb and recall crucial legal concepts more effectively.

Cognitive benefits of dual audiovisual processing

The cognitive benefits of dual audiovisual processing, which is facilitated by subtitling, can have a positive impact on learning, comprehension, and memory retention. When auditory information is complemented by visual text in the form of subtitles, it stimulates multiple sensory channels simultaneously, leading to heightened engagement and sustained focus on the content being presented. Research has shown that the simultaneous engagement of multiple sensory modalities enhances memory consolidation by creating stronger associations and connections in the brain.

Increased information retention for legal professionals and students 

For legal professionals, having access to audiovisual content with subtitles can help them stay up-to-date on the latest developments in their field, as well as provide a way to quickly review complex topics or cases. Additionally, students of law can benefit greatly from dual audiovisual processing as they are tasked with learning large volumes of information that must be remembered for tests and exams. With both audio and visual cues present, users have a much higher likelihood of retaining the material over time.

Facilitating legal research and analysis

Improved searchability and indexing of legal content 

Having the right technology can help legal professionals and researchers easily access, search, and analyze different types of information. Improved searchability and indexing make it easier to locate relevant documents quickly, while efficient review of video or audio evidence can be done with the help of subtitles or transcription services.

Automated document search and indexing technologies enable users to quickly find what they need without having to spend hours combing through endless paperwork. Subtitling is also a great way to archive legal footage and make it easily accessible for future reference. By adding subtitles to archived video content, users can quickly locate relevant information without having to watch an entire video from start to finish.

Efficient review of video or audio services

Legal professionals can benefit from transcription services that allow them to easily review audio or video evidence with accurate subtitles. The data collected by these tools can also be used for analytics purposes, providing insights into trends in the industry—which can then be applied to make strategic decisions about client cases.

Assisting researchers and legal professionals in extracting information

In the past, extracting information from legal documents was a lengthy and arduous task. With AI-powered tools, this process is now much faster and more efficient. By utilizing natural language processing (NLP) tools, legal researchers can extract pertinent facts from complex legal documentation faster than ever before. With AI-assisted technologies at their disposal, users are able to save time locating information in order to focus on higher level tasks such as strategy development and assessment of case merits. Ultimately, these advances in legal research and analysis streamline processes for law firms and lawyers alike—allowing them to better serve their clients and increase productivity.

Benefits of using Amberscript

Amberscript’s services are:

Fast

Edit your text in minutes or leave the work to our experienced subtitlers.

Accurate

Our experienced subtitlers, voice actors and thorough quality controls ensure 100% accuracy of transcripts, subtitles and dubbing services.

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Easy

Through a series of integrations and API interfaces, you can fully automate your workflows.

Secure
Secure

Your data is in safe hands. We are GDPR compliant + ISO27001 and ISO9001 certified.

Ensuring accuracy and clarity

Quality control through professional subtitling services

When it comes to ensuring accuracy and clarity in legal communication, quality control is essential. Professional subtitling services are a great way to ensure that the content of legal documents is accurately portrayed. Subtitles should not only be easy to read and comprehend, but should also reflect the tone and intent of the original document in order to ensure accuracy of information. For this reason, Amberscript offers a manual subtitling service: the professional subtitlers will make sure that your file is as accurate as possible, and will make sure everything is of the highest quality; you only have to upload your file.

Reducing misinterpretation and ambiguity in legal communication 

When communicating legally-binding language or technical terminology, misinterpretation and ambiguity can lead to costly mistakes. To reduce this risk, all parties involved must pay attention to detail throughout the process. This means double checking transcripts for typos or errors before signing or submitting the document. Additionally, using transcription services can help ensure that all relevant information is captured, and that any errors are caught before it’s too late.

It is clear that subtitling has a great deal to offer the legal profession, from facilitating legal language learning to enhancing comprehension by providing a dual-mode approach and granting greater access to legal terminology. To make the most of these benefits, organizations can leverage advanced subtitling solutions like Amberscript. Amberscript’s cutting-edge technology and expertise in subtitling enable accurate and efficient conversion of spoken content into written subtitles, bolstering the effectiveness of multilingual proceedings and supporting a more accessible and inclusive legal environment. With Amberscript’s assistance, the advantages of subtitling can be harnessed to their fullest potential, revolutionizing the way we approach multilingual proceedings in the field of law.

Frequently asked questions

  • Are you ISO27001 certified or do you have any other ISO certifications?

    Amberscript’s IT infrastructure is built on data-servers provided by Google Cloud Platform, which are certified to the highest standards (including ISO27001). Amberscript as a company is also ISO27001 certified and has relevant processes in place to assure quality management and integrity of data.

  • How can I deliver large and/or multiple confidential files?

    You can share it though our platform. We have developed a secure internal platform to share transcripts that need to be corrected or checked by our transcribers. The files will therefore only be seen by relevant third-parties and cannot be accessed by employees or third-parties.

  • Can I burn the subtitles directly onto my video?

    If you have exported the transcript as a SRT, EBU-STL or VTT file, you can easily burn them onto your video using video-editing software.

  • Do you offer services in other languages?

    For our human-made subtitling services we work with a network of language experts in 15 different languages. Find out which here. If the language you want is not on the list, please contact us through our contact form.

  • How do I export my subtitles?

    Once your file is ready and available in your account, you can simply click on the file name and then select the “export file” button at the top left of the page. You can then select the file format, style of sutitles (between BBC and Netflix) and alignment. Please note that you can only export a file if you have validated your email address when creating an account.

  • How do you keep my files secure and confidential?

    Amberscript’s IT infrastructure is built on the server infrastructure of Amazon Web Services located in Frankfurt, Germany. All data that is processed by Amberscript will be stored and processed on highly secured servers with regular back-ups on the same infrastructure.

  • To which languages can you translate subtitles?

    For our human-made subtitling services we work with a network of language experts in 15 different languages. Find out which here. If the language you want is not on the list, please contact us through our contact form.

  • What is the turnaround time?

    The standard deliver time is up to 5 business days. You will also have the option to ask for a rush order. We will then prioritize your file and deliver up to 4 times as fast.

  • Will different speakers be distinguished?

    Yes, our software indicates different speakers and when the speaker changes. 

  • What subtitle file formats are supported?

    Our software allows you to export the transcript from the video or audio file as an SRT, EBU-STL or VTT file.

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