When I started my career as an in-house legal translator at a law firm ten years ago, little was I aware of the exciting journey the profession would eventually bring about for me. Having had the valuable opportunity to earn an LL.M. degree (masters of law degree) in US law at Temple Law School, the only ABA-accredited US law school with a campus in Japan, while working full time as an in-house paralegal and legal translator at my workplace (Uryu & Itoga, a Japanese law firm mainly engaged in corporate affairs), the perspectives from which I am able to view my professional environment, as well as my professional legal work, have undergone a drastic change. Previously, translating legal contracts (whether from Japanese into English or from English into Japanese) was an automatic task for me, changing the legal terms and concepts into another language without much room for deep thought. Now, when I read contracts drafted in English, whether when doing legal translation or performing contract or legal document review as a paralegal, I am …