The word “shall” is widely used in legislative text translation in China and often results in disputes. Though the use of “shall” has been criticized by some scholars for a long time, no obvious changes occur in legislative text translation practice. On the basis of norm theory, a thorough analysis of the reasons for using “shall” is carried out and the potential negative influence is discussed. Finally, on the basis of translation practice, feasible methods are proposed to avoid using “shall” in translating legislative texts.