Abstract
This study falls into two parts. The first part aims at demonstrating how pragmatic and functional considerations are important in legal translation. The corpus the researchers relied on consisted of nine translated versions of three authentic contracts. A Real-Estate Contract, a Contract of Lease and an Employment Contract were commissioned to be translated by three professional translators certified by the Palestinian Ministry of Justice asking them to translate these texts the way they would usually deal with legally binding, official documents.
The second part explores the relevance of Vermeer\'s Skopos theory to the translation of contracts through a small pilot study that compares the work of translation students with a broad, theoretical background and that of a professional translator uninformed about theories of translation. A group of graduate students of translation and applied linguistics and a professional translator were assigned to translate a \"Power of Attorney\" legal