Interpreting in the legal setting is a long-recognized area of specialization in the field of ASL-English interpreting. Tradition from the field of spoken language interpreting and legal community contribute to the conventional way legal interpreting work is performed. As well, practices have been conceived by ASL-English interpreter practitioners over time through a process of application of theory drawn from the profession’s scholarship. As more scholarship and research emerge, practices evolve, improve and change. The NCIEC Legal Interpreting work team seeks to further this process by building a series of expert, practitioner, educator and consumer partnerships that stimulate the open exchange of ideas, experiences and knowledge that deepen our understanding of the work of interpreters in the legal setting.

The core work group is comprised of four individuals. This core group has forged partnership with a larger group of twelve experts who have and will continue to contribute to the targeted outcomes. To date, the efforts of this work team have resulted in the following:

• Three focus groups totaling over 60 interpreters specializing in the legal setting who identified their training needs and priorities, and resources that would support their work. One focus group was comprised of interpreters who are deaf.
• Meeting of an expert work team of sixteen individuals who worked collaboratively to identify best practices, unique competencies and literature and resources useful to the teaching and practice of legal interpreting.
• A framework and draft of an annotated bibliography of literature and resources useful to the teaching and practice of legal interpreting.
• A draft of competencies unique to interpreters working in the legal setting.
• A draft set of best practices for interpreters working in the legal setting relating to team interpreting, division of roles and labor, establishing appropriate working conditions and other relevant themes.

Upcoming activities include finalizing the draft documents, building practitioner, educator and consumer consensus around the documents, and making them available for use by the fields of interpreting and interpreter education. Further, research and training initiatives will be fostered to increase the scholarship and preparation of interpreters for working in the legal setting. One illustration of this is the contribution of funding for two conferences in 2009—the Conference for Legal Sign Language Interpreters in May and a pre-conference being planned for legal interpreters prior to the RID Convention in August.

Please click on the links for snapshots of the work of the Legal Interpreting team throughout the grant:

Year 4  |   Year 3  |   Year 2  |   Year 1

If you'd like to learn more about this team's work with the National Consortium, please visit the National Consortium site.