Perhaps it is true that for some bilingual lexicographers the ‘task par excellence is to establish translation equivalents’ (Zgusta, 1971: 321). This, however, does not apply to legal dictionaries for translation in which a mere list of translation equivalents may prove to be downright misleading. Plagued by terminological incongruency, legel lexicographers must resort to the use of functional equivalents which are inherently inaccurate. Arguing that bilingual legal dictionaries can be reliable only if they are conceptually oriented, the author shows how conceptual analysis can be used to measure the degree of equivalence of functional equivalents, assess their acceptability for translation and even to compensate for terminological incongruency. In order to guarantee user reliability legal lexicographers are predestined to assume the analytical and descriptive tasks of the monolingual dictionary.