Ayuda Legal: Marketing Your Law Firm to a Spanish Speaking Market

Did you know that the United States has the second largest Spanish speaking population in the world? English is spoken in 13% of American homes. That makes it the number one non-English language in the United States. Why are these facts so important for you and your law firm?

It points out to the fact that you can’t ignore Spanish-speakers when it comes to marketing your law firm.

How the Spanish Speaking Market Is Underserved

Although Spanish-speakers make up a significant portion of the American population, they are underserved by the legal profession. Hispanics only make up 5% of all the attorneys in the United States and while there are more lawyers who speak Spanish in addition to them, the number would not increase by much.

This is further complicated by the fact that a significant portion of the Spanish-speaking population are unassimilated immigrants and they might not understand the entire legal system of the United States. Things are made worse by the fact that most law firms conduct their marketing in English.

Spanish-speakers have distinct legal needs. For example, there is a high demand for legal immigration services among them. According to research, more than 25% of Hispanics live in multi-family households, which causes them to be engaged in family concerns, such as immigration. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there is a high rate of vehicle-related cases among younger Hispanics. These things highlight the distinct demand for Spanish-speaking lawyers.

How Translation Services Can Accommodate the Changes in the Demographic

According to the Cervantes Institute, by the year 2050, one in every three people in the U.S. will be a Spanish speaker. The majority of those Spanish speakers will be bilingual speakers but a significant portion will be non-English speakers or those with low English proficiency. For them to get the legal help that they need, law firms must market in their language.

Law firms need the backing of competent and experienced translation services to help them reach their expanded audience in the right way. But law firms must be careful when looking for help when it comes to translation. There could be a temptation to just hire a freelancer which could turn out to be a bad decision.

According to Ofer Tirosh, the founder of and CEO of Tomedes, a translation services company that has worked on a lot of projects that are legal in nature, “A team of experts well-versed in the legal intricacies of the country involved is needed for legal translation. That is exactly what we have in Tomedes, with our network of translators who specialize in their own fields. On top of the team of experts, we also have a clear business process and strong support system, which is very important in meeting customer expectations.”

Marketing to a Spanish Speaking Audience

Marketing to a Spanish-speaking market is not the same as marketing to an English-speaking one. There are some cultural differences that you have to consider.

The best thing that you can do if you want to market to a Spanish-speaking audience is to have someone in your firm who can reach them directly. You should consider hiring junior lawyers who are Spanish speakers. If hiring a junior lawyer is not an option, then maybe it's possible to hire a Spanish-speaking paralegal.

If you have existing marketing efforts that are written in English, then what you can do is to have those translated into Spanish. Just make sure that the translation is done by professional translation services providers so the content can be made to match the culture and the content of the audience.

There are plenty of reasons why translating from English to Spanish is complicated. One reason that we can point out is the fact that many countries in Latin America follow the civil law system. Except for Louisiana, the United States has a common law system. That’s a crucial difference that makes translating legal documents into Spanish tricky. The legal terms are not easy to translate in that context. That really calls for the expertise and the knowledge of translation services that have worked with legal projects in the past.

Some of the legal services that are in demand among Spanish-speakers include:

• Immigration law
• Labor
• Criminal

Spanish-speakers usually need help with immigration, whether they need assistance with their own status or to get their families into the states. They also need help when it comes to labor laws. They would also need Spanish-speaking legal help when they are faced with criminal charges.

You can promote your law firm to help educate the community. If you are targeting a large Spanish-speaking population in your area, then you can start an education drive to help your Spanish-speaking audience become more aware of the legal system in the United States.

They don’t have to be your actual clients for you to help them. You can conduct educational drives in your community to help learn about legal processes that might be applicable to their situation.  Taking these steps will show to your Spanish-speaking clients that you really care about them. This is needed because you must build relationships with your potential clients.

You can also refocus your social media marketing and include Spanish posts. The great thing about social media marketing is you target the audience that will see your post. You can narrow it down to the people you really are targeting.

The Spanish-speaking population will increasingly communicate with your law firm through mobile phones. So, that means you need to focus on mobile when it comes to your marketing.

If you want to expand your practice then you should have more interactions with Spanish-speaking clients. You need to demonstrate to them that your firm cares. The best way to do that is to use their language.