Law360, the provider of legal news, intelligence and analysis, has just published a piece on access to justice in the USA for non-English speakers. Here are some points that stood out for me…

A few states are doing relatively well, but generally speaking no one’s doing great and some people are doing positively awful,” according to James Gamble, director of the Justice Index Project at the National Center for Access to Justice.

“Even within states, you couldn’t generalize in one court versus another,” Gamble said. “What happens in the courts in Brooklyn versus what happens in the courts in Lake Placid is not going to be the same.”

Only 37 states require courtroom interpreters to be certified, according to data from NCAJ. Just 14 evaluate the effectiveness of individual interpreters.

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