This paper discusses the findings of a dedicated survey on prompting and translating legal texts with GenAI, as well as the opinion of legal translators who participated in a focus group discussing this survey. The research was conducted for the writer’s doctoral thesis and reflects the techniques and strategies employed in real time, when the legal translator tries to define and translate a legal concept from Greek to English with GenAI.
Specifically, the paper examines how the ‘algorithm’ was tested in how it rivals or rather complements human fluency in legal translation, while the main challenges are explicitly presented in terms of the parameters defining legal prompting. It then presents the main conclusions drawn when the survey's findings were discussed by professional legal translators and an AI expert in the focus froup.
The framework behind this research is equally outlined since the thesis concerns the teaching of legal translation, with conclusions drawn about the emerging profiles and changing roles in legal translation with the revolution generated by AI.
Finally, the feelings of the human translators are underlined, as they find themselves in 'awe' and/or in 'fear', but also in perplexity before what is actually happening with AI in (legal) translation.
Indicative bibliography:
Krimpas, P.G. & Kokkinidou, A. (2021). Training lawyers/jurists in legal translation and legal language: Aspects and perspectives. Renaud Baumert, et al. Langues et langages juridiques—Traduction et traductologie, didactique et pédagogie. Institut francophone pour la justice et la démocratie.
Penet, JC., Moorkens J., Yamada M. (Eds). (2025). Teaching translation in the age of generative AI: New paradigm, new learning? Translation and Multilingual Natural Language Processing. Berlin: Language Science Press.
Sosoni, V., O’Shea, J. & Stasimioti, M. (2022). Translating law: A comparison of human and post-edited translations from Greek to English. Revista de Llengua i Dret, 78, 92–120.
Anna Kokkinidou, with a PhD in legal translation (Summa Cum Laude, 2026,Democritus University of Thrace) has been working in the coordination of the European Master’s in Translation (EMT) at the European Commission's DG for Translation since September 2023. Her doctoral thesis focuses on training methodologies for legal translation, catering to both translators without a legal background and lawyers/jurists without a translation background. Her extensive career includes roles as a translator at the European Parliament, a lawyer-linguist at the CJEU, a freelance translator for the European Commission, and many years as a professional legal translator in Greece. Prior to her work in the EU institutions, she served as a research assistant at the Centre for the Greek Language, where she contributed to key projects on the translation of the CEFR, the legislation for the establishment of CEF levels in Greek, the language rights and certification of asylum-seekers, test design, and teacher training. Her academic interests align with this experience, covering the teaching of legal translation—including the use of GenAI—and the acquisition of Greek as L2/FL. Except for her academic publications, she is a published author (two short novels and a poetry collection, contributions to the Greek Press) with her fourth book (poetry) under publication.
