Costa Rica greets you with two words: Pura Vida. Pure life. It is a hello, a blessing, and a whole philosophy in a single breath — and it is also a lesson in what language can carry when a country agrees on what its words mean.
In San José, Dena Falken trained Costa Rican legal professionals to do in English what their own culture does in Spanish: agree, precisely, on what the words mean. A contract read in San José will be enforced in Miami, interpreted in Madrid, tested in New York. Every professional in that room learned to read the English document the way they live their own language — carefully, and together.
One bridge carried the whole seminar: buena fe — good faith. In Costa Rica’s civil-law tradition, good faith is not a mood; it is a duty written into the law itself. The English-speaking world writes the same duty into its contracts clause by clause. Two legal cultures, one obligation: your word, given, is your word kept.
That is the discipline Legal-Ease International Inc. has carried into more than fifty countries over thirty years — and Costa Rica, a nation that built its identity on peace, education, and the pure life, understood it instantly.
Pura Vida is not a slogan. It is a standard: say what you mean, mean what you sign, and let the words hold.
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By Dena Falken, founder of Legal-Ease International Inc. — legal English training for professionals in more than fifty countries.
Legal-Ease International Inc.: https://legaleaseinternationalinc.com
Author page: https://www.amazon.com/author/denafalken.com
Million Dollar Words: When One Word Costs Millions: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HMP9XZT1
The Global Legal English Masterclass: Essential Terminology for Cross-Border Documents: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HMM3FCZ4
On Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/260938774
