Customer Reviews

English-Russian Dictionary of American Criminal Law

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As an active certified court interpreter, I have found this dictionary a great help. In contrast to anything I had seen before, it is up-to-date, relevant, and practical. The translations of court forms provided at the end of the dictionary are a wonderful aid, not only for an interpreter like me who happens to work in Multnomah County, but for any interpreter or interested party, since the forms are similar in other jurisdictions. The only real deficit is space; there is so much legal terminology one could include, but obviously there were restrictions on space and size.

This book was a huge dissappointment! I understand why I wasn't given an option of reviewing it before purchasing. It is created by amateur interpreters for the same kind. I am sorry, but I know what 'parking permit' or 'prostitution' are. However, I couldn't find such simple and common legal concepts such as 'peace order', pro se, peremptory challenge, 'on merits', and a bunch of other very common legal terms. It looks like the authors chose to translate the simplest legal terms rather than work a bit harder. The book is also full of typos and spelling mistakes. Do not buy this book!

I have found this dictionary to be a godsend for me in my work as a Court Interpreter of Russian. Previous Russian-English legal dictionaries I have consulted were frustratingly outdated and often inaccurate, filled with archaic and irrelevant terms, and based primarilly on British English and law. The Braun dictionary is very up-to-date and relevant, based on current American court usage. It even has some useful slang terms. Many terms are accompanied by examples. The translations of several commonly-used court and police forms ("Statement of Defendant on Plea of Guilty", "Miranda Rights", "Diversion Agreement", etc.) are wonderful; I use them as a "cheat sheet" in my work. I believe this reference work will be found indispensable by court interpreters such as myself, lawyers desiring to learn some relevant Russian, and legal translators. The only 'faults' I could find were the occasional typo and a few terms I've come across that are not in the book. On the whole, it's an extraordinary work and well worth the investment.

"English-Russian Dictionary of American Criminal Law should be of great benefit to law enforcement officers and criminal investigators in their interactions with the Russian speaking community in the United States. It is critical to our work with Russian crime victims, witnesses and suspects that we have resources to assist us in accurately translating written communications. This Dictionary provides us an excellent reference for interacting with the Russian speaking community.

I am a criminal defense attorney practicing in Los Angeles, California. I also write a monthly criminal law column for a nationally distributed Russian newspaper.

As a native speaker of the Russian language, I found the inaccuracies contained in other dictionaries quite frustrating at times.

This dictionary is like no other I have seen or used in the past. Finally, someone has put together a collection of accurately translated criminal legal terms. My complements to the authors.

I find this book indispensable whether I am dealing with clients that speak only Russian, or writing for the paper. I wholeheartedly recommend this dictionary.

"The authors, both topnotch legal interpreters, have miraculously bridged the linguistic chasm between countries which use significantly different legal systems. Their credentials come from the trenches of trial work as well as the ivory towers of academia. I hope we'll soon see court interpreters toting dog-eared copies of the English-Russian Dictionary of American Criminal Law."