ABA Issues Formal Opinion on the Use of Nonprofessional Interpreters

This week, US lawyers weighed in on the use of machine translation in a professional setting; and, for that matter, on working with “nonprofessional interpreters.”

Being lawyers, they advocate caution. When in doubt, the ABA recommends that the attorney err on the side of safety and obtain help in “deciding whether or not language assistance is required” in the first place. If a lawyer does decide to seek help, the ABA recommends, among other things, to “proceed cautiously” with nonprofessional interpreters. Read the full text below:

www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/professional_responsibility/aba-formal-opinion-500.pdf

Responsibilities lawyers have to provide language access

Our colleague Garrett Bradford posted this on the NAJIT facebook page. 

It speaks to the responsibilities lawyers have to provide language access so they can understand the people they work with and communicate appropriately as they prepare a case.

What applications do you think this paper has?

www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/professional_responsibility/aba-formal-opinion-500.pdf