Recently Asia Law Portal had the opportunity to sit down with Barry Wong, Founder and Director of Hong Kong-based LawTranslate (@lawtranslatecom). It was to discuss the company, its core services offer, and plans for the future. LawTranslate focuses on translation services to the legal services sector globally, with a particular emphasis on the APAC region. It also focuses on quality translation provided by legal technology in Asia and trained lawyers with high language and subject matter efficiency.
In particular, LawTranslate provides Translation, Editing/Proofreading, and Transcription services in
- Traditional Chinese
- Simplified Chinese
- English and
- Japanese
As well as several other languages.
As Barry, a PRC lawyer himself told me, the company is at present focused on the APAC region. And main focus is, in particular, Greater China, but the plans are for global expansion in the future. He said the company’s unique strength is that trained lawyers with subject matter expertise staff it. Here’s our interview:
What inspired you to found LawTranslate?
“Before entering on a legal career, I was a journalist and experienced translator. I noticed that there are very few expert legal translation firms in the Greater China region and across the globe. Yet the demand for expert quality legal/technical translation is ever-growing. It’s due to the faster pace of globalization, growth of technology, more sourcing needs, and the growth of China/Asian economy. I think it makes much sense to have lawyers/technical specialists to translate legal/technical documents than leaving them to the generalists. And I am very glad that I am surrounded by a group of lawyer-linguists locally in region and overseas who has the skills and share the same vision.
Also I am a big fan of legal technology in Asia, and I found the translation industry, by its virtual business nature, is actually a pioneer in accepting a range of latest mechanics and concepts, like cloud, mobile technologies, social media and big data. I regard my business venture is more than just another conventional translation agency; I see it as a sort of online legal startup offering globally accessible legal support services.
By drawing legal ability, deep language skills and inventive technology, LawTranslate.com aims to offer high quality multilingual translation services for legal/financial/business organizations and professionals.”
What makes LawTranslate unique in the translation industry?
Wong: “There are many generalist translation companies out there in the market. But there are much fewer specialist players and even fewer legal translation companies backed by a large team of lawyer-linguists (and legal translators with profound legal training) across different legal jurisdictions. Our lawyer-linguists are capable to practise their own domestic laws (or even some foreign laws). Many of them are non-practising and now focus solely on legal/technical translations, and all of them are native speakers. Besides having a global pool of expert talents, we are skilled in applying the latest version and communication technologies. It will help boost production, enhance quality, and shorten delivery time. Thus we are able to produce top-quality legal versions for lower cost and faster turnaround time.
In addition to document version, we offer multimedia solution too. It includes DTP, website/app localization and audio/video transcription and translation as well. Looking further, we might extend our service offerings to patent translation and filling, document review and drafting, and E-Discovery support and so on.”
What markets are you most focused on in the Asia Pacific Region?
Wong: “In fact, we don’t limit ourselves to the APAC market only. As the translation process can be carried out purely online, the service can be expanded to the global legal community. But, yes, our first and prime focus now will be in the APAC region, especially in the Greater China region. However, our longer-term goal will be serving the global legal community.
As our brand name, LawTranslate.com, suggests, our lead markets will be the legal services sector (including corporate legal departments, law/IP firms, government and lawful systems). But we are also very good at financial, patent and medical translations as well. In short, we aspire to be a leading professional translation firm in the market powered by global legal talents and latest legal technology in Asia.”
For more information about LawTranslate, please see the company’s website at: http://www.lawtranslate.com. And Founder and Director Barry Wong’s LinkedIn profile is located here: hk.linkedin.com/in/barrywlm
