Accurate, secure communication for highly regulated industries

Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu (NO&T), one of Japan’s top law firms, handles a high volume of English legal documents daily, from international cases to communications with foreign companies. In an environment where accuracy, confidentiality, and efficiency are critical, the firm has turned to DeepL to streamline translation workflows and support lawyers at every level. 

We sat down with Mr. Hiroto Inoue, Partner; Mr. Naotaka Yamamoto, Deputy Office Manager; and Mr. Fuminori Noda, Information Management, to learn more about how DeepL is transforming their work.

What are some of the challenges faced by NO&T and how has DeepL helped?

Mr. Inoue: Our firm has offices all around the world—Tokyo, New York, Singapore—and we rely on DeepL every day to communicate between them.

For international cases, lawyers often have to tackle huge volumes of English documents. With DeepL, we can deliver translations faster and more accurately than we could manually. Often, we’ll start with a DeepL translation for when we want to quickly understand something, then refine it into Japanese for when we need something even more accurate. We also regularly translate documents from Japanese to other languages and vice versa when communicating with overseas clients, or within the firm.

Lawyers must take particular care when drafting emails to ensure clarity and avoid misunderstandings. DeepL’s accurate translations make it far easier, and faster, to produce reliable English emails that capture the nuance of the original Japanese draft. For internal comms, where speed matters more than precision, we can even send translations as-is, and it’s enough to get the job done.

Some of our lawyers who are already comfortable with English also use DeepL Write to proofread and refine their own English writing.  DeepL works for everyone by adapting to different skill levels and needs, and it’s made a real difference in our daily work.

Hiroto Inoue, Partner

What was the main factor influencing your decision to adopt DeepL for Enterprise?

Mr. Yamamoto: The decisive factor was DeepL’s robust security. Our firm has a total of over 1000 employees including approximately 600 lawyers, so we needed a solution like DeepL for Enterprise that could easily be rolled out and managed across the firm. The document translation feature was especially valued for its ability to batch translate diverse file formats with a simple drag-and-drop upload.

We’d already heard positive feedback from team members about the service, so usability and translation accuracy weren’t concerns. But because we handle highly confidential information, data protection has always been our top priority. We had looked at other generative AI options, but couldn’t fully rule out the possibility that data entered could be used for machine learning. 

DeepL’s strict adherence to the highest standards of data protection and compliance gave us the confidence and peace of mind to adopt the latest tools.

Find out more about DeepL's enterprise-grade security here.

What drove the transition from individual use to company-wide adoption?

Mr. Yamamoto: We’d been getting a lot of requests from across the firm to adopt a Language AI platform that makes work easier.  Many employees had already been using these services individually—but always carefully, so as not to compromise confidential information.

Even so, it quickly became clear that this wasn’t an ideal situation. We needed a solution that could be officially approved for business purposes. To make the right choice, we collaborated with the Information Management Committee and Legal Tech Study Group to evaluate potential services. That’s how we decided to adopt DeepL officially.

We went with the Enterprise plan because it’s easy to manage. IT can administer it with minimal effort, while employees enjoy a seamless experience. Almost everyone at NO&T–—from lawyers and back office staff to IT–works in a multilingual environment. By rolling out DeepL company-wide, we were able to boost operational efficiency and reduce management costs.　　　

Naotaka Yamamoto, Deputy Office Manager

Can you share more about the transformation you’ve seen?

Mr. Inoue: I've found it particularly effective when understanding and processing English documents. For lawyers who aren't native English speakers, reading and understanding large volumes of English materials in a short time is a significant hurdle. Attempting to produce an accurate translation could take hours just for a single page.Translation tasks are often handled by junior lawyers, but this was a major burden—often taking a full day just to produce a rough draft. Refining the wording could add even more time.

DeepL translations reduced a full day’s work to just a few minutes. Thanks to the app's user-friendliness, the habit of translating any English file received has become firmly established. The psychological barrier to tackling large volumes of English documents has been lowered, contributing to a dramatic improvement in work efficiency. 

Mr. Noda: For IT and help desk tasks, creating translated manuals or handling urgent overseas communications is now much faster—what used to take 10 hours can often be done in half the time. Even when receiving urgent notifications like “system failure reports” from overseas offices, you no longer need to spend time on English translations. You can confidently send the content translated by DeepL, as-is.

Mr. Yamamoto: Thanks to DeepL breaking down language barriers, a wider range of team members now feel empowered to respond to cross-border inquiries, enabling smoother collaboration across offices.

Mr. Inoue: It’s improved teamwork more generally in our multilingual environment, because language is no longer a barrier to expertise. Now, everyone can access case materials in their own language, bringing people closer together and making collaboration and communication across teams and offices seamless.

What features have you found useful to legal and IT practice?

Mr. Inoue: In legal work, the glossary feature is essential for maintaining consistent translations of defined terms in contracts. This helps prevent misunderstandings and ensures accuracy across all documents. We also appreciate DeepL’s ability to understand context and produce natural-sounding translations, which makes drafting and reviewing English documents much faster.

On the other hand, a problem unique to legal practice is that in legal documents where ambiguity is intentionally preserved, DeepL's strength of understanding context and conveying nuance can sometimes backfire. In such situations, we’ll deliberately use an alternative service that delivers a more literal translation.

Of course, even with Language AI, refining expressions and finalizing the wording remains a human task. That said, DeepL still feels like an overwhelmingly convenient service for drafting documents or quickly grasping the content of English texts. Its simplicity of operation is also appealing, making it accessible to anyone regardless of their level of AI knowledge.

Mr. Noda: From an IT perspective, our focus has been to facilitate easy adoption and knowledge sharing. For example, we’ve been sharing tips on the office portal and running webinars to help staff use DeepL efficiently. These initiatives make it simple for everyone to incorporate DeepL into their daily workflows, improving overall productivity.

Fuminori Noda, Information Management

What do you want to see from DeepL in the future?

Mr. Inoue: Ideally, we’d like a feature that lets us switch to a “literal translation” that captures all the nuances, quirks and errors of the original text. In contract work, every word and phrase matters, and sometimes we intentionally avoid overly restrictive translations. 

While DeepL already supports our operations very well, we’re looking forward to future industry-specific features that could make it an even stronger, go-to tool for our work.

What’s next for Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu? 

Mr. Inoue: We’re currently expanding our overseas office staff and want to further enhance communication and collaboration across all locations. By leveraging DeepL to break down language barriers, we expect to strengthen the sense of unity and cohesion throughout the firm even more.