Tips for legal assistants

Secure your clients testimony and your boss’s sanity

 

Interview and qualify the interpreters first before you schedule them.  If you take the time to set up your criteria once, and make a list of who meets the criteria, you'll be ready with professional interpreters at hand.  If you rely on an Interpretation/Translation agency to meet your requests, review how they qualify their staff.

Additional resources:

 

“An Essential Guide to Dealing with Interpreters and Translators”

Legal Assistant Today - National publication for the legal assistant profession.                 

James Publishing Inc.               November/December 1998

                        

Available online at http://www.legalassistanttoday.com/issue_archive/98Index.htm.

 

 

Here’s what to look for:

 

Þ Obtain their Texas Department of Licensing Licensed Court Interpreter Number.

Þ Verify their status online at http://www.license.state.tx.us/LicenseSearch/.

Þ  Focus on those who specialize in legal interpreting and have courtroom experience, training and membership in professional associations.

Þ Verify their law firm references and ask about any confusion that occurred during testimony and their professional behavior (on time, polite, flexible with cancellations etc.)

Þ Note their training and CE’s, a degree in Spanish is simply not enough.

Þ Verify their fluency in English by calling and speaking with them.

Þ Confirm  if they perform simultaneous or consecutive; see TIP under “Modes of Interpreting” on the Working With Interpreters page.

Þ Ask about their rates, payment terms, minimums and advance notice requirements.

 

 

ARE YOU BILLINGUAL IN SPANISH AND ENGLISH?

 

Pump up your translation and interpreting skills and increase your value to your company!

 

Increase your value at the office!

 This specially designed group course includes:

· Individual aptitude assessment of each group member

· Language skills improvement: written and spoken, terminology and phraseology

· Professional Interpreting skills improvement: consecutive and simultaneous modes

· Interpreting tools and resources

· Translation tools and resources

The course is designed to meet your  specific needs and to enhance your performance. Contact Diane dianeteichman@linquisticworld.com for details today.

 

Save Money for the company!  Instead of having a deposition transcript or settlement agreement translated (written out), we can come to your office and read it to them.  This is called Sight Translation and is a recognized procedure. We provide a notarized certificate signed by the interpreter stating that said document was orally translated to said persons, verbatim and another notarized certificate in both languages which the client signs, stating that it was read to them and that they understood it.

 

Decipher the unknown quantity with indexing

 

When you are presented with file boxes of evidentiary documents in a foreign language; call us to come and index it for you in your office Just tell us what relevant specific time periods or topics you want to see and we will sift through it all and present you with only the germane documents to be translated.