Description
Provide impartial, accurate simultaneous and consecutive interpretation between English and another language in courts, hearings, and legal proceedings, and perform sight translation of legal documents while following court procedures, confidentiality, and professional ethics.
- • Follow court codes of ethics, maintaining confidentiality, impartiality, and accuracy.
- • Interpret simultaneously or consecutively in trials, hearings, depositions, and attorney-client conferences, preserving content, tone, and register.
- • Render sight translations of legal documents such as plea forms, rights advisements, and orders.
- • Request repetitions or clarifications when permitted to resolve ambiguities and ensure accuracy.
- • Research and verify legal and technical terminology; maintain consistent usage across proceedings.
- • Prepare case-specific glossaries from charging documents, discovery, and exhibits when available.
- • Use first-person interpreting and render everything said on the record without additions or omissions.
- • Operate interpreting equipment and remote platforms; ensure audio quality and correct channel use.
- • Review and, when assigned, translate or proofread short legal texts for accuracy and completeness.
- • Consult dictionaries, legal references, and terminology databases to support accurate renditions.
- • Check source statements or documents to ensure interpretations preserve meaning and intent.
- • Confer with judges, attorneys, and court staff to clarify procedures, scope, and scheduling.
- • Take interpreter oaths and comply with court protocols, including turn-taking and decorum.
- • Keep records of appearances, case numbers, and hours; submit required reports or invoices.
- • Disclose and avoid conflicts of interest; recuse when required.
- • Mentor or coordinate with other interpreters for long or complex proceedings.
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Tasks & skills:
O*NET occupational data (work activities, skills, knowledge).
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This site includes information from O*NET by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. Career Clutch has modified some of this information for student readability. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.
Last reviewed: Jan 2026
