A lawyer’s profession extends beyond their country’s borders. In fact, you should get your website translated in order to broaden your horizons. The profession of a lawyer consists of defending their clients by protecting their interests, with respect to the Law. More and more lawyers are specialising in a specific branch of law, so that they can become experts in this specified field. Here is a little reminder of some of the main fields of the Law:
- Family law (divorce, inheritance)
- Criminal law (dealing with antisocial behaviour)
- Property law
- Public law (dealing with disputes between civilians)
- Business law ( dealing with the activity between merchants and manufacturers)
- Intellectual property
- Social law, especially labour law
With globalisation, exchanges between countries have exponentially increased and with this increase comes the need for legal translation. This increase also affects international agreements, international commerce agreements, public law, as well as private law.
This is why it is so important for lawyers to consider the international aspect of their profession and to think of getting their websites translated.
Website translation: Why is having your website available in different languages so important for a lawyer?
Nowadays everybody has access to the internet. According to a study carried out by CSA Research, internet users prefer websites to be in their native language. Especially in the field of law, where the level of language required is very specific, internet users want to be able to understand the person who is representing them.
Therefore, there is a great deal of confidence, and the guarantee of being able to understand each other is very important.
Here are some tips for creating your multilingual website
Use one language per page for the translation of your website
Firstly, it is not worth taking the risk of confusing your customers. Keep it plain and simple by following the basic rule of one language per page, this will make your website much easier to follow
You should then get your website translated by a translation agency that specialises in legal translation:
Noting that it is your calling card, and your way to showcase your professionalism in dealing with your future clients’ affaires.
However, be careful of plagiarism: Google apply penalties in cases of ‘duplicate content’. In cases like these, if the languages are different, it is accepted on the condition that the URLs are different.
Website translation: which languages should you choose? Here are the top 10 most translated languages
- English
- German
- Chinese
- Japanese
- Spanish
- Portuguese
- Spanish (Latin America)
- Italian
- Arabic
- Russian
In order to develop your business activity, it is very important to be accessible to people who are based other countries where the language is different. It is hard work, but you will reap the benefits if it is done right.
The importance of using a translation agency that specialises in website translation
In a line of business that requires precision and meticulousness, machine translation is not recommended. In the field of law, accuracy and strict confidentiality is a requirement.
Precision
In fact, legal terminology can have different meanings according to the country, law Whether it is for translating a patent, a contract, or drawing up statutes, precision is crucial. A bad quality translation or a mistranslation can have serious repercussions.
Confidentiality
Google Translate provides immediate translations. But these translations will have many imperfections, which can end up costing you, because there is another problem that is even more important. Everything that is typed into Google Translate will more than likely be reused by the programme.
Legal documents that need to be translated require the highest level of confidentiality. They can vary from court hearing transcripts, contracts, insurance forms… This is why all lawyers should not use machine translation, especially when it comes to the confidential personal details of their clients.
Finally, machine translation also has its uses. To find out more on how machine translation works, see our article: How to correctly use machine translation to translate your legal and technical documents.
The translation of legal documents, and a lawyers website is tough work that requires the intervention of specialised legal translators. At ACSTraduction, we work with many specialised legal translators. We specifically choose each translator to suit the needs of our clients.