Interpreters: Your clients, and your clients’ clients.

Dear colleagues:

I get goosebumps every time I hear freelance interpreters talk about their “boss”. I am constantly surprised at the huge number of independent contractor colleagues who refer to the authorities at the agencies, hospitals and courthouses they provide interpreter services for as their bosses.

This is an abomination when used to describe the other party to a professional services contractual relationship, now exacerbated by the very dangerous ruling by the United States National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in SOSi where it ordered this interpreting agency to reclassify its interpreters working as independent contractors as employees. SOSi is appealing the decision, and we will discuss it in depth on a future post.

Our concern today is the conscious or subconscious lack of understanding of the professional services relationship derived from a contract where an independent interpreter is the service provider.

Freelance interpreters are independent professionals who provide their services for a fee. The terms of such services and fees are agreed upon by the interpreter providing the service and the individual or corporation recipient of the interpreting services in a contract. The parties to this contract are: The professional (who provides the interpretation, in other words, the interpreter) and the recipient of the professional service, called the client.

Yes, dear friends and colleagues, as freelance professional interpreters we provide our services to a counterpart called the client. Our main contractual duty is to render the interpreting services as agreed with the client, and the client’s main obligation is to pay the agreed fee in exchange for those services. The contract is called: Professional services contract.

Freelance interpreters are independent professionals free to choose the clients they want, under the terms they see fit, and for the service they picked. There is no authority figure over the freelance interpreter. All duties, responsibilities and obligations are contained in a voluntary contract (oral or written), a professional code of ethics, and the legislation governing the profession in a particular jurisdiction.  Client and interpreter are equals. There is no boss.

Bosses exist in labor relations where a part: the employee, is in a subordinate position to the other: the employer or boss, who gives directions, orders, and instructions to the subordinate who must comply with these commands during working hours, in exchange for a fixed wage. Employer and employee are not equals in this relationship. An employee cannot choose what she does. If she does not comply she will be sanctioned and even fired.

Webster states that: a client is “… a person who engages the professional advice or services of another…” Oxford tells us that a client is “…a person or organization using the services of a lawyer or other professional person or company…”

Interpreting is a profession. Interpreters perform a professional service. Interpreters, like all professional service providers, have clients.

Here we see then that we must not call a client a boss because it is inaccurate, and it immediately puts the interpreter at a disadvantage. Calling your client “boss” creates a subservient relationship in your mind that will quickly translate into an attitude and lifestyle. It paralyzes the interpreter as she or he will no longer feel capable or worthy of arguing work conditions, professional fees, or assignments.

For those of you who see judges, doctors, court and hospital administrators, and language service agencies: Eliminate that thought. It is wrong. They are your clients, and you can negotiate and refuse assignments when you consider it appropriate.  Your duties and responsibilities to do a professional top-notch job come from the contract, the legislation, and from your professionalism. You do a good job because you are a professional who wants to provide a good service because you want to keep the client, or you just want to do the right thing. You don’t do it because you have somebody breathing on your neck looking over your shoulder micromanaging everything you do. You do not need someone telling you how to dress for an assignment, or reminding you to get there on time. However, as long as you see the client as your boss, they will act as your employer.

Professional interpreters have clients and charge professional fees. They do not charge rates. A commercial product vendor or a non-professional service supplier do not have clients. They have customers. A customer buys goods or non-professional services from a business. Webster defines them as: “…one that purchases a commodity or service…” Oxford gives more details when it tells us that a customer is “…a person who buys goods or services from a shop or business…” Unlike professionals, these merchants get a rate or a price in exchange for the goods or non-professional services purchased.

Physicians and dentists are professional service providers, so they technically have clients, but for historical reasons, and due to the nature of their services, these service recipients are called patients. According to the American Medical Association’s Code of Ethics (AMA), physicians must be “…dedicated to providing competent medical care, with compassion and respect for human dignity and right.” It also considers that people with an illness must wait to see a doctor or to be treated, and that requires patience. Webster indicates that a patient is “…an individual awaiting or under medical care and treatment…”  To Oxford it is “…a person receiving or registered to receive medical treatment…”

I have observed how many freelance interpreters have a hard time separating their client from others who may participate in the process like vendors and providers. The convention center or hotel events center are not the interpreter clients, they are vendors who provided the facility so there can be a conference. Unless the interpreter hired them directly, they have no contractual relation with the interpreter. They are the interpreters’ clients’ problem. The same can be said for the technical support: booths, interpreting equipment, sound system, etc. Unless they were hired directly by the interpreters, these are also suppliers who have a contract with the interpreters’ client, not with the interpreters. They are not your problem either.

Another common mistake is to confuse the direct beneficiary of the interpretation with the interpreter’s client. Usually, they are not your client. The five hundred people in the auditorium listening to your rendition are the direct beneficiaries of your professional rendition. Without you they could not attend the event; however, they are not your clients. They are your client’s clients. As professionals we must accommodate all reasonable requests by the audience and the speakers, but they are not the ones paying your fee. They are paying your client because they are your client’s clients. For this reason if a person in the auditorium asks you to speak louder, you may consider the request, and even honor it when reasonable; but if somebody attending the conference asks you to take a recorder to the booth and record the rendition for him, you will decline, and direct him to your client (please read my blog post on what to do in this situation).

Dear friends and colleagues, as professional interpreters who provide our services as freelancers we have many clients we choose. We decide who we want as our client, and who we do not. We have the last word on whether we do an assignment, and when a professional relationship with a client must end. We set and negotiate the terms of our work, our pay, and out booth mates.  Employees do not get to do this because they have a boss: the employer. We do not. We practice in a world where we are equals with our counterparts in a professional contractual relationship. We do a magnificent job, we accommodate all reasonable requests of our clients’ clients, and we cooperate and support other providers and suppliers such as facility workers and technical support staff, but we do it because we are professionals and we have made a business decision to keep the client we want to keep, not because we are told to do so. Please stop referring to your client as your “boss”, and the next time a project manager tells you what to wear to an assignment, to be on time; or the next time a hotel waiter tells you not to have a cup of coffee, please stand up for your dignity and that of the profession. I now invite you to share your thoughts on this issue.

Interpreting CJA cases is a bad business decision.

Dear colleagues:

A recurring theme among my court interpreter colleagues in the United States is the extreme difficulties they must endure when working under the Criminal Justice Act program (CJA). There are complaints about absurd paperwork procedures and unimaginable payment delays. Some colleagues’ invoices for professional services rendered under this program have been outstanding for over a year!

I worked with attorneys under the CJA program, but when the system changed about 18 months ago, and interpreters’ invoices had to go through the defense attorneys to get paid, and I heard some of the delayed payment stories from colleagues nationwide, I decided not to take CJA cases anymore.

For those of you who do not do federal court interpreting work in the United States, in 1964 the United States Congress enacted the Criminal Justice Act (18 U.S.C. § 3006A) to provide a system for appointing and compensating lawyers to represent defendants financially unable to retain counsel; and providing for payment of experts, investigators, or other needed defense services in federal criminal proceedings, including interpreters. Today, the Office of the Federal Public Defender, with the over 10,000 private “panel attorneys” who accept CJA assignments annually, represent the vast majority of individuals prosecuted in U.S. federal courts.

CJA panel attorneys are paid an hourly rate of $132 in non-capital cases, and, in capital cases, a maximum hourly rate of $185. These rates include both attorney compensation and office overhead. In addition, there are case maximums that limit total panel attorney compensation for categories of representation (for example, $10,000 for felonies, $2,900 for misdemeanors, and $7,200 for appeals). These maximums may be exceeded when higher amounts are certified by the district judge, or circuit judge if the representation is at the court of appeals, as necessary to provide fair compensation and the chief judge of the circuit approves.  CJA attorney appointments are made by the Court on a rotating basis among members of the panel. Freelance federal court interpreters are paid with the same system, but with an additional step: Before their invoice goes to the judiciary, it must be reviewed and approved by the CJA panel attorney who requested the interpreter’s services. I guess interpreters are officers of the court of a lower tier, so they must be policed by the CJA panel attorney, apparently an officer of the court of a tier higher than the interpreter.

This process, not required when interpreters work directly for the federal courts interpreting court hearings or out-of-court interviews for public defenders or probation officers, created a burden on freelance interpreters who now devote a considerable, uncompensated time to the paperwork and its unavoidable eternal follow up process, that often takes many months and even years. Interpreters are billing for the time they worked as interpreters in a case, but that time represents but a fraction of the hours interpreters spend on paperwork, and follow up telephone calls, emails, and in-person visits to the courthouse, trying to discover the status of a payment for a service provided long before. This time goes uncompensated, and interpreters cannot work somewhere else, and generate income, while they are tied up in bureaucratic nonsense and begging for payment of rightfully earned professional fees.  For all these reasons, and to keep my health, sanity, and dignity, as soon as the system started I decided not to take any CJA panel cases, and I have taken none.

I suggest you do the same. Once you do it, you will be surprised at the money you will save just by rejecting these cases. Those of you who know me, or have read this blog for years, know that I am always suggesting diversification in the profession among freelancers so you can keep steady income, and a stream of interesting assignments instead of a boring monotonous routine. Dear colleagues, there are plenty of options even if court and legal interpreting is your thing and you do not want to step outside your field.

The most desirable practice would be civil cases with well-established high-profile law firms. They generally handle interesting cases, have clients who understand and appreciate your work as interpreter, and pay excellent, professional fees when you negotiate correctly. Smaller civil law firms and solo practitioners are also a good alternative.

Next, you have the criminal defense private attorneys. They have time to handle their cases and they usually retain you for the entire case. Here your interpreting services are well paid, and you are exposed to challenging, but interesting cases. It is rare to work in a case involving white collar crimes when you spend your time providing services to public defenders and CJA panel attorneys.

Foreign law firms are also a very good choice. Globalization has generated a big multinational litigation practice, and those top-notch attorneys coming from countries where they do not speak English may need the services of a local court interpreter team. Fascinating topics, including intellectual property, foreign trade, mining, hazardous materials, are common with these clients. Family Law practitioners from these countries are also looking for interpreting services in cases of divorce, child support, international child abduction, and others.

If you want to fill in the rest of your agenda with more court/legal work, you can also provide interpreting services to the Office of the United States Attorney in your jurisdiction. Witness preparation, proffers, transcriptions, and other services are required by the AUSA. An added benefit: They are not bound by the (every-day lower) federal fees, so you can negotiate a much better compensation for your professional services.

If you like working with the federal prosecutors, then you must offer your services to the United States Trustee Program (USTP) for their exams and interviews in federal bankruptcy court cases. This is another source of legal/court interpreter income that pays well when you negotiate your fee correctly.

Finally, you can still work with the federal public defender and, if you want to interpret hearings instead of interviews, negotiations, and depositions, you can interpret for the federal courts. You will only make the set half –a-day or full-day fee, and you will usually get the same type of cases, but you will stay away from the long, demeaning, and never-ending invoice procedures associated with CJA panel attorney cases. As a less desirable option, but in many ways better than dealing with the CJA system, you could always work at the state-court level.

Dear friends and colleagues, there are plenty of alternatives to CJA assignments, even within the court/legal field. I believe that if you all were to do what I did from the beginning, the CJA system would have no choice but to change and become more interpreter-friendly. I do not believe on “fantasyland solutions” such as talking to chief judges and court clerks; it was tried in some districts and they accomplished nothing. We cannot continue to lose income, health, and dignity backing up a system that proved ineffective. I now ask you to share your comments with the rest of us.

Is being a capable, good individual enough to lead a professional association?

Dear Colleagues:

I have written about the benefits of belonging to professional interpreter and translator associations in the past. Sometimes I have praised and criticized some, but I have never questioned the need to have them around, ready to defend and advance the profession through professional development of their members, advocacy, lobbying, education, forging alliances, and so on.

Today we need them more than ever before. In a globalized economy, where we are the constant target of greedy agencies, ignorant government officials, shrinking budgets and growing intolerance, solid professional associations are essential to our profession. Because we are not all equal nor we live in the same environment, in my opinion, interpreters and translators should belong to at least one international, one regional, one local, and one specialized association.

Unlike other posts, today I will not question the intentions of some associations’ disturbing agenda centered on corporate memberships, I will not talk about the good or bad practices of some others regarding public relations, advocacy, or the planning of a conference. My concern in such matters remains unchanged.

My motivation behind this post comes from deep concern and historically supported fear about the immediate future of one of the largest and most popular professional association in the United States. Even though this entry centers on issues that happened in America, many of this association’s members live in other countries, and this situation could easily happen somewhere else.   I encourage all readers to continue to the end, even if you live somewhere else.

After many years of struggle, and a long fight for its survival, this association reestablished itself. It grew and the quality of its membership improved. For the past two years it has grown tremendously and has held its two most successful conferences in history, not just because of the people attending the events, but due to the quality of its content.  As a veteran member of the association who experienced the good old days, the horrible years of decay, and this rebirth, I can confidently say this historical recovery happened because of the experience, prestige, knowledge, honesty and vision of two of its Board members, the hard work of all five people part of the Board, and the professionalism, skills, and work of the two individuals who have been in charge of the administration for the last couple of years.  Sadly, the members of the association learned last week these two Board members resigned to their positions.

By looking at the composition of the Board, anybody interested in joining the organization, learning about the profession, or denouncing a professional or ethical transgression, would see a well-respected professor from one of the more renowned interpreting and translation institutions worldwide, a pioneer and innovator on a note-taking technique for consecutive interpreting, a trainer and conference presenter in all continents, a United States Department of State interpreter, one of the most respected (beloved by the interpreters who worked with him) and capable managing interpreter for one of the busiest federal district courts in the United States, including courthouses in four cities, and perhaps the one of the few districts to have staff certified interpreters in a language other than Spanish, one very experienced federally certified court interpreter from the state with the largest non-English speaking population in the United States, one very experienced federally certified court interpreter from one of the busiest federal judicial districts in the country due to its proximity to Mexico, a well-known and widely respected authority on legal transcriptions and translations, a promising somewhat recently federally certified court interpreter from a small city in the Midwest, one of the newest trainers of interpreters and conference presenter, a State-level certified court interpreter for one local court in the New York City metropolitan area, and a PhD in Linguistics, experienced university professor who does not live in the United States.  These credentials explain the reason many of the most capable and better known court interpreters who left the association during the dark era came back. It also gave many of us an important tool to promote the association and encourage new interpreters to join.

Unfortunately, after last week’s resignations, anybody interested in joining the organization, learning about the profession, or denouncing a professional or ethical transgression, will see a promising somewhat recently federally certified court interpreter from a small city in the Midwest, one of the newest trainers of interpreters and conference presenter, a State-level certified court interpreter for one local court in the New York City metropolitan area, and a PhD in Linguistics, experienced university professor who does not live in the United States.

I have no intention to criticize, offend, or disrespect the colleagues who remain as Board members. I have no reason to doubt their skills and dedication; I am not questioning their honesty or integrity either. They appear to be capable, and many of you trusted them when you voted for them.

I think it is important for me to mention that the two Board members who resigned, and the two individuals in charge of the administration, are all good friends of mine whom I have known for many years. I have had very limited contact with the current directors. I have dealt with one of them more than the others because of the conference in the Washington, D.C. area, but we have no relationship beyond saying hi at the conferences or being Facebook friends.

This post is not about those directors who stayed, but about the ones who left; the missed opportunities due to their absence, the uncertain future of the organization, and my concerns about the reasons that pushed courageous, capable veterans of the profession, full of ideas and plans for the association’s future, to resign.  Every time that a non-quitter quits we must worry and find out what happened.

Dear friends and colleagues, for a professional association to thrive it must gain access to many places, many inaccessible to the common folk. Effectively arguing for the interests of the profession before government authorities, establishing professional practice positions before clients, and protecting our profession from the predators of the “industry”, are difficult. Many of those we must talk to will only listen when the voice addressing them has the credibility backed by name recognition, reputation, professional trajectory, and personal network that the now missing directors have.

Many of you reading this post, members of this association or not, are too new to remember the dark years.  They started with a Board lacking experienced federally certified court interpreters, world-renowned freelance practitioners admired and respected by other veterans who trusted them, and could be role models to the new interpreters.  The Board of those years had good intentions, I think they wanted to make the association better, but a Board of university professors and non-certified interpreters shrank the organization. For years our conferences were poorly attended, made no money, and could make no decisions because with so few members attending the conferences we did not have quorum to vote for or against anything.  On that occasion, just like today, capable, experienced, well-known and respected Board members left; some just came back in the last couple of years when they recognized a Board like the ones in the past. Many of our most valuable members never came back. Many of my colleagues and I do not want to go back to the dark years.

I understand that many of you are friends of the current members of the Board, I get that many of you voted for them. Nothing is wrong with that. What troubles me is the emotional part. There is no reason to be offended or angry when people question the credentials of the current Board compared to the ones of the Board we just lost last week. I have seen how some of you are wishing good luck to the remaining Board. I wish them a long and happy life, but I am not on the well-wisher column. I prefer to remain on the skeptical, scrutinizing every move and decision.  I want to know what caused the two resignations. Not the light version or the excuses. I know the ones who resign and they could not possibly resign over one decision. It had to include other issues, perhaps even the way the Board members interacted.

I have also read how many of you are demanding an audit of the performance by the company retained to manage the financial and day-to-day operations. I think that should not be necessary as I trust the professionalism of the two individuals who run said company (and as I said, they are my friends) but I welcome the suggestion as a needed step to erase the uneasiness of many members. I know the administrators will not like this, I know it will hurt their feelings, but I also know that they have nothing to hide and will understand the need for this audit which should be expanded to go beyond a mere examination of the books. Like I said, the real cause of the resignations came not from the accounting books, it came from some repeated interaction among Board members.

I also believe that to avoid going back to the failed years of the past, we must let people speak up. If the members want to vent their frustration with the way things turned starting last week, they should be allowed to post anything on the Facebook group (as far as I know there are no complains about censoring it so far) and also to use the List Serve. At this point it is irrelevant what the guidelines say about who or what can be expressed there. It is absurd to defend a decision splitting hairs because somebody was censored, banned, moderated of whatever. These are extraordinary times and they require of flexibility and total freedom of expression to all members. We all know that everybody will say what they must say, if not through the association’s official outlets, then through another social media vehicle.

This is a time to listen to the members, have an independent auditor and perhaps a committee to investigate what happened so we can have transparent and complete information we can trust. Self-serving statements by Board members, and providing some financial and corporate information on line will not be enough.

Finally, we all must understand that it will be difficult to fill the two vacancies on the Board with colleagues of similar caliber to the ones who left. Serving in any professional association is not an easy task, it takes a lot of time, requires of many personal and professional sacrifices, and it does not make you any money.  Getting anybody to serve is hard, I for one would not do it, but getting somebody with the same characteristics as the ones of our two dear colleagues who quit will be a titanic effort.  Hints by the current Board indicating that they will move fast worry me.  It will take some time to get people that can take the Board’s collective resume back to where it was last week. Other decisions can be postponed if needed, there are no contracts or deadlines that justify a rushed decision. Many of us are serious about it. We will be watching closely this nomination process, because this time it will be even more complicated to get the ideal people on the Board. These two new members must have another characteristic: They must be independent, they must be of a different persuasion from the one of the three members left. You may think this does not matter, that regardless of their ideology they will be in the minority 3-2. This is true, but having such diversity of ideas and opinions will assure us as members that even in losing a vote, they will let us know why the majority voted the way they did.  As you can clearly see, we will need two extraordinary professionals who can play the role of the extraordinary professionals who just left, people not close friends of the current Board members so we can be sure the Board is not marching in lockstep without anyone questioning their decisions.

As those of you who assiduously read my blog know, my only interest is the betterment of the profession and protecting my colleagues; I contribute to the profession as much as I can, and I do it all over the world. I have many ideas and projects in mind; I have recently discussed many with one colleague who left the Board. I am not a teenager anymore and I will not sit and wait to see how a Board that looks different from what I proposed above turns out. I will take my projects somewhere else, and work with others who think like me, perhaps even the Board members who quit. I want to be clear: I am not quitting the association at this time. I am going to be vigilant and question every move and decision by this and future Boards; I will continue to demand transparency and diversity of opinions in Boards that are not elected by the membership (like in this case) and I withhold judgement until I am satisfied one way or another. In the meantime I will behave just like I did during the dark years: I will not praise or attack the association and I will not encourage anybody to leave or join the organization until I see what the Board does.  I now ask you to please share your thoughts on the composition of the Board, be brief and concise, and please do not write emotional comments attacking or defending past or present Board members.

Some administrators make interpreting very difficult.

Dear colleagues:

Interpreting is an extremely difficult profession. Besides mastering their craft, interpreters must know enough about practically everything, possess the will to research and study, and be confident and clear when assisting others who need to communicate in two different languages. This is a plate full of challenges, sleep-deprivation, and the need to be aware that this is a business where we need to excel if we want to survive.  Unfortunately, too many times this tough profession gets even tougher because of ignorant, incompetent, narrow-minded, or lazy, supervisors and administrators, even when they are well-intentioned and mean no harm to the interpreter or the profession.

We all know that there are good, hard-working, and capable administrators, many of them former interpreters who know what it takes to do a good job (although some former colleagues, for whatever reason, have not been successful as supervisors or administrators). I am not talking about them here. Today I am referring to those who fit the description above and have made the lives of our colleagues impossible, and even nightmarish.

There are many examples of poor decisions and unfortunate actions by these “people in power”, and I am sure you all have your fair share of them. My travels take me to so many places where I hear these stories from frustrated interpreters, so I know, as well as you do, that there are numerous examples where to choose from. This selection process was, at the same time, difficult and easy, but I finally settled for the two cases that I will describe below. In choosing them, I took into account the magnitude of the error, and the impact this has on ourselves and our profession. I say to my friends and colleagues who do not practice in the court system that the examples are from the legal field, but they could easily be from medical, community, military, or conference interpreting.

Some time ago, an administrator in a court setting put an interpreter’s knowledge of his duties, legal procedure, and rules of ethics to the test, by reacting unexpectedly to a very delicate situation.

This seasoned veteran interpreter was working in a trial, together with another colleague who apparently was fairly new to the practice.  They were interpreting for a member of the jury who did not know English (the main language in the jurisdiction where the trial was taking place). Although uncommon, there are places where the law allows people of other languages to be a part of a jury. This was one of those cases.

In the middle of the trial, a police officer was called to testify. During the testimony, he went on to describe how he had learned about the circumstances of the case, and part of what he was describing to the jury, had to do with the manner in which he gained access to the home of the defendant.  At that point, the non-English speaking juror that the interpreters were assisting, passed a note to the judge through the bailiff. The judge read the note, and asked the interpreters to sight translate it for him and the attorneys on a sidebar, so the jury would not hear what this person wrote. The note was a question from the non-English speaker to the police officer who was testifying: The juror wanted to know if the officer had authorization from the owner of the house (the defendant) to enter the property. After discussing it with the attorneys, the judge allowed the question, as in this jurisdiction, like in many others, members of the jury are permitted to ask questions during a trial. The veteran interpreter sight translated the question aloud, for the record and for the benefit of the witness and the jury. The novice interpreter stayed with the interpreting equipment ready to simultaneously interpret back the police officer’s answer to the non-English speaking juror. Once the question was posed to the witness in English by the veteran interpreter, he went back to his place next to the novice interpreter. I do not have the transcription of the exact answer, but after a moment, the police officer responded something like this: “…No… but because of the specific circumstances of the situation, this is one of those exceptions allowed by the statute…” and he went on to describe the circumstances and the exception to the rule. Regardless of the truthfulness of the officer’s statement, for all practical purposes, his answer was that he was acting legally when he entered the property. At that point it was for the jury to assess the credibility of the witness and decide if he was telling the truth. After this answer, the jury was well equipped to make that decision. Unfortunately, the non-English speaker juror did not hear a complete interpretation of the answer given by the policeman. As noted above, the rendition the juror heard in English was as follows, and again, I did not have the benefit of the transcript, so the officer’s answer was something like this: “…No… but because of the specific circumstances of the situation, this is one of those exceptions allowed by the statute…” and he went on to describe the circumstances and the exception to the rule. Sadly, the interpretation by the novice interpreter was: “No”. Nothing else.

When the veteran interpreter, who was sitting next to the novice interpreter heard the rendition, and saw how the novice interpreter just kept going without even trying to correct his mistake, the veteran interpreter worried. He immediately realized that there was a juror who had asked a question, and at this time was at a disadvantage compared to the rest of the jury because an interpreter had omitted a crucial part of the testimony. Dear colleagues, while the other jurors heard how the police officer was legally allowed to enter the house of the defendant, the non-English speaker heard the officer say “no”. He heard him answer to his question by saying that he was not allowed to enter the home. The veteran interpreter tried to make eye contact with his colleague, also wrote him a note, but the novice interpreter ignored the efforts of his fellow interpreter, and avoiding his stare, he just kept going as if nothing serious had happened.

As soon as the veteran interpreter realized that his colleague was not planning to correct the rendition, he wrote a note to the judge asking for a moment to talk to him and the attorneys. The bailiff gave the note to the judge who read it, acknowledged the veteran interpreter, and signaled that he would listen to him as soon as it was prudent to come to a stop in the trial.

A few minutes later, the judge took a recess, asked the jury to leave the courtroom, and in open court, without the presence of the jury, he listened to the veteran interpreter who explained what happened. After some debate by the attorneys, the judge decided that he was not going to tell the jury about the misinterpretation; instead, he considered that the best way to cure the mistake was to allow the prosecution to explain during closing arguments that the officer was legally allowed to enter the defendant’s residence because of an exception to the law and that the police officer knew this when he decided to go inside the house. This is exactly how it happened, and the problem was cured by the judge’s decision and thanks to the skill and quick thinking of the veteran interpreter. After the trial the judge thanked the interpreter for disclosing this issue that otherwise would have gone unnoticed by the court.

This would have been a happy ending for everybody, even the novice interpreter who thanks to the actions of his veteran colleague learned from his mistake without harming the legal process .  Unfortunately, there is more to the story.

When the court administrator in charge of interpreter services found out what had happened during the trial, she immediately asked the veteran interpreter to go see her.  Apparently, when the interpreter got there, she was fuming because, according to her, the interpreter had made a big mistake by writing a note to the judge informing him that he needed to talk to him and the attorneys. In the opinion of this administrator, who is not an interpreter or an attorney, the veteran interpreter needed to stand up and immediately state aloud, for the record, that the interpreters needed to correct something, and then immediately correct the mistake of the novice interpreter by doing a full rendition of the police officer’s answer to the non-English speaking juror.  The veteran interpreter could not believe what he was hearing as the administrator spoke of sanctions to the interpreter for not making the correction right away on the record!

Obviously, the veteran interpreter immediately explained to the administrator that her suggested solution was not even an option, that interpreters need to know the basic rules of criminal proceeding, and that doing what the administrator was suggesting as the solution to the problem would have been nefarious. This action could have risked a mistrial because of an interpreter decision to disclose something to the jury without first informing the judge and the attorneys who should be the ones who, after arguing the facts and the law, decide how to cure the error.  Obviously, the judge thought that in this case, instead of correcting the rendition the way the administrator wanted, the appropriate solution was to fix it on closing statements as they did.  Judges can be wrong, but interpreters should not take over the judge’s function and decide what to do in a trial. Even after this explanation, the administrator did not admit the mistake to the interpreter, perhaps to save face, but she knew that the he was right because no sanction was ever imposed to the veteran interpreter. We can clearly see that, an example of an interpreter doing the right thing to correct a mistake was praised by those who knew the law, but it created undeserved stress and generated unnecessary expenses to the interpreter, who had to be worried about possible sanctions by the administrator, and had to spend a day at the administrator’s office instead of earning a living. Some administrators make interpreting very difficult.

The second case happened to me. As you know, I teach workshops and seminars all over the world. On one occasion, the organizer of a workshop that had hired me to teach, among other things, an advanced ethics seminar, contacted me to let me know that the person in charge of approving continuing education credits in a rural state in the U.S. had informed them that she was not going to grant credits because the title of the seminar did not include the word ethics. I was extremely surprised to hear this because that exact seminar had been approved for continuing education credits many times in the past, and in fact, it had been approved for the same seminar in other jurisdictions.

I sensed the concern on the part of the organizers, because even though the state denying the request for credits was small and we would probably get very few interpreters who needed that approval, if any, they felt (as I did) that the credits were deserved.  To alleviate my client’s concern, I wrote a very detailed explanation to this state officer explaining sentence by sentence how the description of the seminar that she was given from the beginning referred to the Canons of Ethics. I even indicated what Canon applied to each one of the parts of the description of my seminar. I further explained that adding the word “ethics” to a title does not qualify a class as ethics, that my experience as a professional instructor had taught me that to get a big crowd to attend a seminar or workshop you need a catchy title, and that was the reason why I had decided not to go with a boring title with the word “ethics” as part of it. That is why we provide a seminar description so that those deciding to attend can make up their minds. To our surprise, this bureaucrat, who has never been an interpreter, is not a lawyer, and has been in the government for over twenty years, rejected the credits request because “…the description (of the seminar) does not match the title (of the presentation…).” Because of the size of the jurisdiction that she represents, we decided not to pursue the continuing education credits that state anymore. This was a business decision, not an academic one; it did not impact my career or my pocket, but for the purpose of this post, I thought it was important to include this ignorant decision by a person who in the past told a newspaper that to find court interpreters: “…we call restaurants, churches…I found a Kurdish interpreter at Target…” It is no mystery why there are so few certified court interpreters in this jurisdiction, and why they are among the worst paid nationwide.  Our colleagues who deal with this individual regularly know well that some administrators make interpreting very difficult.

I now invite you to share with all of us your stories about those occasions when the ignorance of a supervisor or an administrator made your work more difficult, and remember, please do not mention people’s names or places.