Legal / Court interpreters interpret for people who come before the courts who cannot communicate effectively in English. These include defendants and witnesses in criminal courts as well as litigants and witnesses in family and civil courts. Interpreters also work in out-of-court settings such as attorney-client meetings, depositions, witness preparation sessions, and interviews with court support personnel (e.g., probation).

For more Information please visit:www.najit.org

A legal / court interpreter must have superior, unquestionable command of the two languages and must be able to manipulate registers from the most formal varieties to the most casual forms, including slang. The interpreter’s vocabulary must be of considerable depth and breadth to support the wide variety of subjects that typically arise in the judicial process. At the same time, the interpreter must have the ability to orchestrate all of these linguistic tasks while interpreting in the simultaneous and consecutive interpretation modes for persons speaking at rates of 200 words or more per minute.

The goal of a legal / court interpreter is to enable the judge and jury to react in the same manner to a non-English-speaking witness as they do with one who speaks English. Also, the legal equivalence provided by the court interpreter is the record. It serves as the basis for any potential appeal.

For the legal / court interpreter, protecting the record is accomplished through disciplined and rigorous attention to transferring the conceptual message and style from the Source Language (English or Spanish) to the Target Language (Spanish or English).

Through the interpreter, the judge and jury are given the opportunity to make judgments about the general socioeconomic, educational, and cultural background of the witness on the basis of the speaker’s linguistic style and choice of words. The latter point is especially important in terms of its legal implications.

We have developed training seminars to help legal / court interpreters go from aspiring interpreter to a Federally Certified Court Interpreter.

Since 1983, our training seminars, which are held throughout the United States, have helped over 2,500 interpreters enter the professional ranks in the following areas:

Federal Courts (MUST be Federally Certified – Click Here for More Information) U.S. District Courts U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal U.S. Supreme Court U.S. Court of Claims U.S. Court of International Trade Magistrate courts Bankruptcy courts U.S. Court of Military Appeals U.S. Tax Court U.S. Court of Veterans' Appeals

State Courts (MOST states require state certification) Probate court Family court Traffic court Juvenile court Small claims court Municipal court