In recent years, translation studies have abandoned prescriptive theoretical approaches in favour of descriptive ones focussing on the observation of translated texts as autonomous language products characterized by specific traits deriving from the translation process itself. In addition to this new trend, researchers have shown renewed interest in the translation of language for special purposes, as is the case with the legal language dealt with in the present study. This article illustrates data obtained by analyzing a corpus of comparable legal texts comprising texts originally written in Spanish and published in the BOE (Boletín Oficial del Estado) and texts translated into Spanish from unknown source languages and published in the DOUE (Diario Oficial de la Unión Europea).