An interesting discussion is taking place at China Law Blog about Statistical Machine Translation. I think that it is interesting that Dan Harris uses statistical machine translation when a quick response is needed for communication at a legal practice. I would hope that he provides a caveat that they are getting machine-translated correspondence. As a commenter Benjamin says:

"Just yesterday, a client sent me a Russian language condo sales agreement he needed turned around really quickly. To speed things up, he provided me with a computer translation of it. The translation was completely incoherent. My client's first question was whether the deposit was refundable or not. Here is the translation of that provision: 'In the case of refuse Buyer from a transaction in the indicated term, advance to the last does not return.' Find me a lawyer who would give legal advice based on that!

I gave it to our Russian paralegal and she instantly said it was nonrefundable."