23 Jul The Court Interpreter Job Under the Human Resources Lens
In Wisconsin, the State Court Interpreter Program and certification are turning twenty years old in the Fall of 2024. The first staff interpreter jobs in our state were created shortly after the certification became available. Recently, a few counties have advertised jobs in this category. Here are my opinions on the job descriptions and salary offerings I have seen for court interpreter positions.
Qualifications
Fortunately, it seems like people in Wisconsin have come to learn that “almost doesn’t count except in horseshoes.” The postings I have seen do require State Court certification. In contrast, the minimum education level required is high school. The people who are certified and have no college education are a minority and anyone who has become certified has invested time, money, and effort to do independent study to get certified. It would make more sense for the minimum education requirement to be State certification and the preferred qualification to be an undergraduate or graduate degree in a related area or other certifications. “High school” as a requirement is a turn-off for applicants who have had years of study beyond high school to become interpreters, whether they have degrees or not.
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Job Description
Unfortunately, my colleagues and I have had some good laughs with the Court Interpreter job descriptions. As you read some job descriptions, it becomes evident Human Resources did little or no research into what our profession entails. Most job descriptions have a slew of tasks that have little or nothing to do with court interpreting. Tasks that would be better suited for clerks, translators, language access coordinators, interpreter schedulers, and others. It almost seems as if court interpreting was not enough. When you look at other highly specialized professions, you will have a hard time finding a job description filled with duties that are unrelated to the particular job or skills. When you hire an expert, you are paying for their expertise, not their time. It seems these court interpreter job descriptions aim to fill up time with unrelated tasks. I have to wonder why this does not seem to happen with other specialized jobs. A well-thought-out job description speaks about the respect and importance a position has in an organization. For someone considering a position, this is a first impression- it will lure you, or make you walk away slowly. Wisconsin HR, you have room for improvement here.
Salary and Benefits
When a human resources professional decides how much money to offer for a job, they look at similar positions in the area to find out the corresponding salaries. In the case of counties, they are looking at other interpreter jobs in counties, but they seem to not be considering the income an independent interpreter can earn. Even when you factor in the cost of benefits a job offers, independent interpreters have the potential to earn much more money than a staff interpreter. Besides a decent income, people are also looking for work-life balance and a good work environment. An independent interpreter can take more time off, has flexibility in their schedules and the freedom of accepting out-of-court work that may be more rewarding professionally and financially. An independent interpreter sells a highly specialized service to clients. They usually do not offer to do anything outside of court interpreting. On the other hand, staff interpreters are sometimes expected to do things other than court interpreting. This does not tip the balance in favor of an HR department trying to fill a court interpreter position.
If you’re considering accepting an interpreter position, it’s important to realize the responsibilities of a job, the conditions and the salary are negotiable. It is up to the candidates for the position to accept or reject conditions or salaries that are appropriate for the unique skills court interpreters hold. It will also be up to the Human Resources departments to tailor offers that will make it more likely for a job candidate to accept the position they are attempting to fill.
The idea that there are not enough candidates for court interpreter positions in Wisconsin has been mentioned frequently in recent months. If the salaries and the conditions offered were right for the high-level skills of interpreters, would more people be interested in applying for these jobs? Even beyond the current jobs available, would more people be attracted to the profession in the future if the pay and conditions were better?
Reme Bashi has been a certified court interpreter in Wisconsin since 2008. She began her career as an interpreter and translator in Mexico, at the University of Veracruz, where she majored in pedagogy. Being bilingual in English and Spanish lead her to language teaching and then to translation and interpreting. She was a conference interpreter for several years, interpreting for the media and government events in Mexico.
In the Midwest, Bashi has interpreted in a variety of settings – education, manufacturing, legal, and community. When she’s not interpreting, she likes to learn about new subjects, something that she considers pivotal to becoming a more proficient language access professional. Recently she has immersed herself in hospitality, urban gardening, and ancestry research. Contact: reme_sullivan@yahoo.com
As a—well, somewhat proud—dropout of two prestigious universities in my native country with only a high-school level education who is also a certified interpreter (master level in my native language, journeyman in a third language I picked up over decades living in the USA), I must unfortunately disagree with your suggestion re: education requirements. People who invested money and time in an interpreting degree have my sympathy, but this requirement could potentially affect the employability of otherwise perfectly qualified individuals. It may be a bit late in the game for some of us to pursue a higher education at this point as one nears retirement from the courts to go back to full time freelancing in the conference arena, but still, I think it’s a bit discriminatory in nature. I know other interpreters in my position who are perfectly capable of delivering high quality services, and in fact do it on a daily basis. I have worked with several. So, please, as you edit your post (it’s missing the end of the last sentence), please take our plight into account. Thank you.
I realize I did not get my point across about the High School diploma matter. My disagreement with having a HS diploma as a requirement is it diminishes the time and effort needed to become certified. Whatever means one used to gain the knowledge and skill necessary to get certified- courses, independent study, a degree, travel, work experience- it’s worth much more than 12 years of education. In my opinion, any certified interpreter deserves the same respect, regardless of the path they have taken to obtain certification. That is exactly the reason why I insist a High School diploma has no place in the qualifications of a court interpreter. The qualifications in a job description should reflect the difficulty of our profession. If the minimum requirement is certification, that translates into years of study far beyond High School. If the minimum requirement is High School, it gives a false sense of what it really takes to become certified. I will continue sharing my ideas in another article soon. Thanks for sharing your opinion!
Hello Arnaldo,
Thank you for taking the time to comment and express your opinion.
I do not read the blog that way. Having a certification to work in court goes way beyond having a “high-school diploma”. Whether it is academic or practical education, it takes years to prepare to pass a certification exam.
Reme has always treated me and other colleagues with a great deal of respect, as equals, knowing that we do not have a colleague degree, but also, that we would if we could.
Neither premise excludes the other. There can be great Interpreters lacking academic education and there can be great academics without skills to be great Interpreters.
The point of the blog is to make us aware of the skills and cognitive effort it takes to do our job so we can demand proper compensation and the inherent dignity our profession deseves.
I hope to see you next time I am in Jersey. My love to your sister.
Reme, nicely written article. Below are a few comments and details I’d like to add:
Qualifications: I agree. I like your solution.
Job Description: Research has shown a close correlation between court interpreters and court reporters, although there is often a discrepancy in compensation. I would propose using “court reporter” as a template and adding language-specific requirements from the description given in the NCSC Self-Assessment and Study Tools > Qualifications (qualifications.pdf) and the NCSC Court Interpreter Oral Examination: Overview (Oral Examination Overview for Candidates
This document has been prepared to help persons aspiring to become approved court interpreters understand what the oral examination measures, how it is administered and scored, and how to prepare for taking the examination.)
Salary and Benefits: I agree that compensation is inadequate to attract properly qualified candidates. Federal Court Interpreter salaries (JSP 13 – JSP 14) could be used as a guideline (https://www.uscourts.gov/careers/compensation/judiciary-salary-plan-pay-rates).
I think those of us who may have the ear of decision-makers should have these resources at hand to share and educate whenever teachable moments present themselves.
Thanks, Jason! I couldn’t agree more. Thanks for the resources. Let’s keep having these important conversations with other interpreters and decision-makers.
Thank you for such a compelling blog, Reme. I think the link below speaks for itself.
https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/saukwi/jobs/4440401/court-interpreter?pagetype=jobOpportunitiesJobs
The job opportunities in IL are by far the worst, but that is another blog!
Illinois has a long way to do on the road to language access. And Wisconsin can’t be losing ground!
I have a HS diploma and I am State Certified. I just studied hard to pass. And I am continually learning, as we all are. 25 years strong. With my own small business. My training and experience as a Jehovah’s Witness minister in 2 languages has been an education in itself.
Good article.
In reading some of the comments, I realize I did not get my point across about the High School diploma matter. My disagreement with having a HS diploma as a requirement is it diminishes the time and effort needed to become certified. Whatever means one used to gain the knowledge and skill necessary to get certified- courses, independent study, a degree, travel, work experience- it’s worth much more than 12 years of education. In my opinion, any certified interpreter deserves the same respect, regardless of the path they have taken to obtain certification. That is exactly the reason why I insist a High School diploma has no place in the qualifications of a court interpreter. The qualifications in a job description should reflect the difficulty of our profession. If the minimum requirement is certification, that translates into years of study far beyond High School. If the minimum requirement is High School, it gives a false sense of what it really takes to become certified. I will continue sharing my ideas in another article soon. Thanks for sharing your opinion!
Thank you, Carlos! I’m glad you commented. Your years of experience and hard study are what make you a certified court interpreter. Not the HS diploma. That’s why I’m convinced we need to reject HS being the minimum requirement for an interpreter to apply for a position. It’s like saying you are hiring a lawyer and the minimum requirement is a High School diploma.
“ ‘High school” as a requirement is a turn-off for applicants who have had years of study beyond high school to become interpreters, whether they have degrees or not.’ ”
So sad, too bad. I appreciate your article, but do not share your views regarding a requirement for academic degrees. Those folks simply need not apply. We all acquire our knowledge differently, and it’s becoming tiresome to hear degreed interpreters objecting to non-degreed interpreters who do the same job, because that is what it boils down to. As a Certified Federal Court Interpreter who dropped out of college to travel and to explore, and who has worked with a fan-deck full of interpreters over 20 years, I heartily tell you that having a degree is no guarantee of competence.
Hello Heather. From years of conversations with Reme, I can tell you that is the point Reme is trying to make. Having a high-school diploma, hardly qualities anyone to be an interpreter. A certification, when available does. Thank you for always reading the blog and participating actively in these conversations. And even when we may disagree, it is our privilege to remain involved and open to dialogue.
Great article..
Michele Di Pasquale
Florida Court interpreter.
Thank you!
Yeah no! As much as all of us as interpreters tend to think we are and deserve to be called Doctors of all knowledge, the truth is we are only good bilinguals and to be a great interpreter is irrelevant to however many masters degrees we may have. In fact you could be a Doctor of Law and A Doctor of linguistics and a Doctor of Interpreting all at once and still be horrible at interpreting, to the point of even not being able to pass a certification exam. To be a great interpreter is within it’s own world and less then 5 percent of all interpreters are great. The requirement of a high school diploma plus state certification is highly logical in terms of finding adequate interpreters for the job. Great Interpreting skills are required to be a great interpreter degrees are not.
Oh and on another note, A i has been advancing so much recently that by the time we finish reading all these lost arguing about degrees A I has already mastered several degrees. It is scary to think that interpreters will obsolete sooner or later.
Regarding the job description, it is evident that HR is acting on the continuous ignorance of the requirements to become a skilled interpreter as most tend to believe that being bilingual would suffice the required qualifications so they might as well offer a position of anything and everything else and add interpretation to a job description – all for an embarrassing salary.
As a Professional Interpreter and a BS Paralegal Studies and Criminal Justice Graduate, I can attest to seriousness and difficulty of the profession and the need for special skills. It is not enough to know a literal translation of a word. A Professional Interpreter must be able to understand a context as a whole in the legal field. Just like I cannot represent a person in court with a paralegal degree, nor should a bilingual high-school graduate or a court-staff member should act as an interpreter. The fact that HR is adding certification as a requirement makes me have conflicting feelings since I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
With the 20+ years of experience working alongside attorneys in the legal field as a paralegal in matters involving criminal, civil, family, juvenile, probate, etc., and as an independent interpreter in State, Federal and Immigration Courts I know what it took me to obtain the skills and qualifications for the profession and I cannot agree to have the state or federal, and much less HR determine how much I should earn in the capacity of interpreter.
It is up to us to work together. The fact that some, if not all states do not see interpreting as a profession does not mean that it isn’t. How do we go about changing their view? I sure hope that by demanding it. We must accept offers involving interpreting services ONLY and no others. As a paralegal I had one salary and it did not include interpreting. My interpreting skills are as valuable as my fees. The federal rate is already what it is so I don’t accept anything but independent cases.. HR at the state level should not have a say to our fees, much less to add anything other than interpreting.
The Indiana Supreme Court has been pushing for the use of Certified/ Qualified Interpreters only by reimbursing the courts only when they provide proof of it. There’s a shortage of Certified/Qualified interpreters for sure. I think that most of us would agree that the reason for unavailable interpreters is that most would rather take independent jobs for a higher paid.
Finally, I believe that we all ought to work together to have our profession recognized as such and one way would be to credit us for the classes, workshops, seminars, etc., and anything else needed for certification/qualification. After all, it is encouraged by the Interpreter’s Code of Conduct and Procedure.
Thanks for commenting!
It’s clear that many HR departments need to better understand the unique skills and responsibilities of specialized roles like court interpreters. As a court interpreter, it’s essential that the job description aligns with the specialized skills and duties required for the position. Including unrelated tasks not only misrepresents the role but also risks undervaluing the expertise that interpreters bring to the table.
Very well put! Thank you for participating, James.