When Words Mislead: How to Read English Contracts Clearly in the Age of AI

Spot hidden meanings in contracts, flag misleading terms, and make confident translation decisions using expert insight and AI tools.

Translating English contracts rarely causes trouble because of complex legal terms. More often, the problem comes from ordinary words used in highly specific legal ways. When taken at face value, those words can mislead translators and create ambiguity or unintended legal effects.

This webinar shows you how to spot those risks early on in your translation process.

You’ll learn how meaning is built in English contracts through drafting conventions, not just vocabulary. We’ll break down recurring language such as open-ended time references, conditional phrasing, proviso clauses, and other commonly misunderstood formulations. The focus is practical: What is this clause actually doing? What legal function does this wording serve?

The webinar also covers how to use AI responsibly. You’ll review AI-generated interpretations of contract excerpts and evaluate whether they truly reflect the legal meaning. You’ll learn how to correct, refine, and control AI output instead of relying on it blindly.

Designed for translators working to or from English in any language pair, this webinar helps you produce clearer, more accurate contract translations while reducing risk.

You will learn how to:

1. Identify ordinary words in English contracts that carry hidden legal meaning.
2. Make clear, defensible decisions when translating ambiguous contract language.
3. Evaluate AI-generated interpretations and spot legal inaccuracies.
4. Use AI to speed up research without losing control over meaning.
5. Position yourself as a trusted legal translator who reduces risk and revisions.

About the Presenter

Graciela Susana Souto is a certified translator and attorney with more than 35 years of experience in legal translation, contract law, intellectual property, and comparative legal systems. She is a professor of legal translation and Anglo-American law at the Universidad Católica Argentina and has also taught at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, the Universidad de Belgrano, and the Universidad del Salvador. She was an instructor of legal translation in the Certificate in Translation Program at New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies and has taught professional courses for translator associations throughout Latin America. She teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels and regularly serves as a thesis advisor and member of graduate thesis committees. She has been invited by ATA to deliver seminars and webinars and was a distinguished speaker at the 2011 ATA Annual Conference. She also served as president of the Ethics Tribunal of the Buenos Aires Association of Sworn Translators. Her professional focus is on interpreting contract language and legal drafting across languages.