The sworn translation of legal documents in Spain has been traditionally linked to strategies characterised by literality as the prevailing approach to professional 'fidelity' requirements. The uncritical adoption of literal techniques, however, may undermine the multi-faceted role played by the translator as a mediator in intercultural communication acts. Functionalist theories can help to determine the boundaries within or beyond which translators can fulfil such a role when producing and certifying 'faithful renderings' of legal documents. This is illustrated by a case study on the sworn translation of Spanish legal summonses into English. The different stages of the translation process are briefly described following a circular model similar to Nord's (1991) looping paradigm. Emphasis is put on the definition of the skopos, the general features observed in the textual analysis of a representative corpus, and the strategies which may be applied in the solution of some potential translation problems.