Trainer Directory

Olga is a lawyer-linguist having her private practice established in 2004. As a professional teacher of English (Philologist; Teacher of English language and literature) and a qualified lawyer (State Administration and International Relationships), her activity has always been closely connected with teaching, jurisprudence and translation. As a Legal English trainer, Olga delivers the course to both future lawyers and legal professionals from private and public sectors. She has participated in various international and domestic projects.

Among the courses developed and successfully implemented – Legal English (comprehensive course for legal practitioners), Legal Writing (with accent on plain English), Contract Language, Interviewing and Advising, Legal English for Secretaries.

Olga is a co-author of English-Ukrainian Dictionary of Legal Terms and an author of English-Ukrainian Explanatory Dictionary of Legal Terms Used in Maritime Law.

Tom Heaven     

Contact: Berlin / Germany   Phone: +49(0)17671287031   E-Mail: tom@tomheaven.com   Website: http:// tomheaven.com

Agneszka Kocel     

Contact: Poland /  Phone: +48509 116 883   E-Mail: agakocel@op.pl   biuro@linglex.pl  Website: www.linglex.pl

I’m a Ph.D. holder, a university lecturer and a sworn translator/interpreter, specializing in legal translation and conference interpreting. I have graduated from the University of Warsaw in Poland, where I obtained an M.A. and Ph.D. degree, followed by two years of post-graduate training in conference interpreting and a few years of teaching experience both in Poland and England. I am particularly interested in comparing legal systems of various countries and currently I am doing research related to insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings in Poland, Great Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia. I have set up LingLex, a School of Legal English, which offers courses and seminars on various aspects of Legal English and I run Legal English classes, teaching lawyers and business people. At the moment, I am also working on my own Legal English coursebook, which I will have published in the near future. English, and Legal English in particular, has always been my great passion, which ensures that whatever I do in terms of my work, I also do as part of what I identify with.

Sophia Barinova 

Contact: Russia / St.Petersburg  Phone: +7 (812) 963 40 62   E-Mail: info@legalenglishcentre.com     Website: www.legalenglishcentre.com

David Best    

David has taught ESP/Legal English/English for Economics, Management and Marketing (combined with EU Multilingualism/Translation Policy) within the Faculty of Law, Université libre de Bruxelles since 2011. He holds a BA in European Studies, Languages and Literatures (1999) and a PhD in Italian Studies (2008), both from University College Cork, Ireland.

Previous to embarking on the field of Legal English in 2011, he lectured for ten years on Italian language, literature and cultural studies at University College Cork, at the University of St Andrews, and at Trinity College Dublin; then on English Language and Translation at l’Università degli Studi di Napoli ‘L’Orientale’

He has published mainly on 20^th/21^st-century Italian literature. His latest research concerns EU legal terminology and the “untranslatability” of legal language in the supranational EU context. An article-chapter entitled “Equal respect or equal effect: the untranslatability of legal terminology and its impact on language parity in the EU” is forthcoming in a collected volume to be published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2015.

Myriam Farhand     

Patrick Mustu

Matt Firth

Matt Firth teaches Legal English at the University of St. Gallen, the Hochschule Vaduz, and the Management Centre Innsbruck. He is Academic Director at TransLegal, the world`s largest provider of Legal English courses and materials.

Matt has authored many Legal English courses with TransLegal, and also edits an online Dictionary of Law. He organises regular workshops for teachers, as well as training seminars for lawyers and businesspeople. His recent publications include Introduction to International Legal English, several teacher`s books in academic English, and a series of online workbooks. Matt also writes the Legal English column for Business Spotlight.

Matt has organized many training seminars for teachers of Legal English across Austria and around the world. His work as EULETA representative includes encouraging networking between teachers, supporting new Legal English initiatives in Austria, and establishing a regular ideas swap shop.

David Thornton

David Thornton has been working in ELT since 1998, with experience of teaching in the UK (Oxford and Bath) and Italy (Palermo), including at International House and Bell English Language Schools. Currently a University Teacher and Trainer specialising in accredited (ESP) courses – Legal English, Financial English and Business English – in Further and Higher Education institutions, for professional associations such as the Association of Chartered Accountants (l`Ordine dei Dottori Commercialisti e degli Esperti Contabili), independent legal and financial professionals and businesses.

As well as Teacher Training/Certification courses, as of 2015 also a Teacher Trainer/Conference Presenter in Italy for Cambridge English Language Assessment, University of Cambridge. Professional responsibilities also encompass editing and translating academic papers for academic journals at the Law Faculty and other faculties and universities. Driven by sharing the passion for the teaching/learning process in ELT.

Mark Brophy

I graduated from Manchester University in Management Sciences and worked in the UK in industry and IT for a few years before moving to Monza, Italy in the mid 1990s. My client base includes multinational organisations as well as tax consultants and legal professionals. I teach specialized courses to the local branches of both the Law Society (Ordine degli Avvocati) and Chartered Accountants (Ordine dei Dottor Commercialisti e Esperti Contabili) as well as many local private law and tax firms. Through my role as EULETA Board member I have an extensive network of contacts throughout Europe and regulary organize international seminars with professional in other European countries.

Rebecca van Es

I have a bachelor of arts degree in English literature & psychology, a bachelor of laws degree from the University of Cape Town, and an LL.M in international legal studies from New York University. I have lived in Berlin since 2010 and have since then taught several legal English courses in Berlin and Brandenburg, primarily to law students at the University of Potsdam. I continue to teach at the University Potsdam, where I also give private legal English lessons to one of the law professors.

András Petz

András has nearly 20 years of experience in teaching contract drafting, legal and business business terminology in English, as well as translating and editing legal texts.He is owner and director of anglofon central & Eastern Europe, the leading legal English training centre in the region, and anglofon Studio, a boutique translation agency specialised in legal English translations. His main research area is legal terminology.

Recently, he published “Terminology of Civil Law”, which provides a structured overview of the terms used in the law of civil procedure, persons, contracts, torts, family and inhertance. He frequently speaks at various international conferences.

He also teaches legal and business terminology at Eötvös Lóránd University, one of the most prestigious institutions of the CEE region.

Szabó Lászlódrás

SZABÓ László graduated from a Hungarian Teacher Training College, with a B.A. degree in Teaching English, where he also studied Linguistics for four years from the renowned linguist Ágnes Pálfy, then Associate Lecturer at the English Department of the College, then a lecturer at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA.

He later obtained a certificate in translation in the English-Hungarian language pair, with specialisation in Law. He worked as an in-house translator for eight years at a market-leading Hungarian translation company now part of the Espell group, and was engaged in translating text of Law on a regular basis.He has been working in the translation business for fifteen years now. Currently he works as a freelance translator for Law Firms with international clients and Hungarian and UK translation companies in his clientele, translating texts in Law.He passed the TOLES Advanced exam, the world’s leading English exam for lawyers, law students and legal translators in 2013. He has also completed a summer law course at the University of London, and he passed the course test with distinction.

Based on his skills, experience and education and extensive research, he wrote a 1000+ page, 50 chapter book on English for Law, that gives lawyers, law students, translators and interpreters a jump start in getting to know and excel in English for Law, both in terms of grammar, general and legal terminology as well as the language of seven practice areas: Inheritance Law, Property Law, Law of Civil Procedure, Tort Law, Intellectual Property Law, Company Law and Contract Law.The book was proofread by Janile HILL, who holds a degree in Law (J.D., Yale) and in Linguistics (North-eastern Illinois University, Chicago), and she confirmed that:“Students for whom English is not a first language and who are pursuing a JD, LLM, MBA or any other business degree should find A Practical Guide to English for Law extremely useful.”

The book was prefaced by Professor Adrian Briggs, Professor of Private International Law, from Oxford University. In his preface, he wrote among other things that: “Although it may appear to be daunting, because of its size and seriousness of purpose, this book is reassuring in its thoroughness, in its organisation, and in its many, many illustrations of the way in which the pieces of the language of legal English are put together. It is amazing to think that, in this frantic world, anyone would have the patience, the rigour, or the skill, to compile a compendium of this kind. But Szabó László has shown that he has all of these, and all those who have the need or the opportunity to learn from, and to be reassured by, this most remarkable book, will be in his debt. It is a great honour, as well an immense pleasure, to commend this masterly work to all who may come across it.”

This “masterly work” – as the Oxford Law Professor puts it, is to be offered for publication to a world-class publishing house.

Francis J. Mari, Jr.

Francis has the experience, education, and expertise to effectively teach Legal English to foreign based attorneys/firms within Germany. He currently teaches at the prestigious Business Institute of Köln which prepares legal students for the ILAC exam. Francis also trains individual lawyers that are interested in learning Legal English for their personal endeavors. Francis is actively building his teaching/consulting business—Effektive Kommunikations which will cater to both attorneys and business professionals throughout Germany.

Francis originally hails from Philadelphia, USA and was an independent Paralegal for over five years. He specialized in both Civil and Criminal Law matters and has real world experience that cannot be taught simply with course books. Moreover, Francis has multiple certifications in law, and was responsible for researching complex legal cases while constructing complicated trial briefs. He is always looking to meet new people, network with other professionals, and train attorneys/firms that want to learn viable Legal English effectively.

Agnieszka A. Chojecka

A legal English tutor and language consultant

I graduated from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland (the English Philology Department). Since 1998 I have been teaching business professionals and since 2004 I have focused on legal and financial English and tutored law students, legal trainees, advocates, legal advisers, tax advisers, accountants and judges of common and administrative courts. In my Legal English Centre, an authorised TOLES exam centre, I offer workshops for lawyers, group courses and individual tuition.

I can help legal professionals to:

• work on effective legal writing and contract drafting
• prepare for the TOLES exams
• practise presentation and negotiation skills
• improve vocabulary in their areas of expertise
• increase confidence, fluency and accuracy in speech.

I have designed and published my study materials (Civil Procedure Terminology: Survival Guide for Polish Lawyers; Prepositions in Legal Use and More: Networks of Meaning, Higher level and Advanced level; Employment Law Terminology: Survival Guide for Polish Lawyers).

My students benefit from guidance on how to:

• memorise legal vocabulary most efficiently
• take advantage of their individual learning styles
• become independent language learners.

Dr. Mark Spittle