Word choice is an essentially fundamental and core process for translators of legal terms and bilingual legal lexicographers.Using qualitative research and comparative analysis of Chinese and English legal terms, three particular groups of Chinese legal terms which are frequently misunderstood and mistranslated by translators and interpreters are fully discussed.The findings hereof are not only beneficial to the revision or future compilations of Chinese-English legal dictionaries, but also illustrate how decisive word choice is to authentic translations of legal terms with more than one meaning(polysemy in legal translation) and of confusing legal terms.The core quality of the legal translation professionals is their capability of matching legal terms between the Chinese-English language pair.