Legal / Court Interpretation

Legal interpretation is divided into two main categories, judicial (commonly known as court interpreting) and quasi-judicial (interpreting that takes place in other legal settings). Judiciary interpreters work in courtrooms and in out-of-court settings, in any matter related to law or a legal case.

Judiciary interpreters are highly skilled professionals who fulfill an essential role in the administration of justice by providing complete, unbiased, and accurate interpretation between English speakers and non-English or limited-English-proficient (LEP) defendants, litigants, victims, or witnesses. They are impartial officers of the court, with a duty to serve the judicial process. The judiciary interpreter’s role is to help remove the linguistic barriers that impede an LEP individual from full and equal access to justice under the law.

Assignments may take place in juvenile, municipal, state, or federal court, or in out-of-court settings such as attorneys’ offices, jails, law enforcement facilities, or other locations. In some states, such as California, certified court interpreters are also qualified to interpret in medical settings, by virtue of their certification, qualification, training, and experience.

In legal settings, only three modes of interpretation are permitted by federal or state statute, court rule, or case law.
These modes are:

• Simultaneous Interpretation
• Consecutive Interpretation
• Sight Translation

All three modes require skills beyond near-native proficiency in both languages.

The main technique in judiciary interpretation is that the interpreter uses the same grammatical voice as each speaker, without ever lapsing into the third person. This is called direct speech, and permits people to communicate with each other directly. The interpreter’s task is to interpret everything from one language into the other language, while preserving the tone and register of the original discourse. In any legal or quasi-legal setting, an interpreter is not permitted to add, omit, or delete any content. Nor is an interpreter permitted to give a summary (also known as “occasional” interpretation) of a speech or text.