Requests for courtroom interpreters are on the rise in Pennsylvania and the need in Luzerne County has grown considerably in recent years. Administrators say the state could use more Spanish language specialists, but becoming certified is no simple task.
From 2018 to 2022, the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts saw a 20% jump in requests for interpreters across all languages statewide. Requests in Luzerne County shot up 85% over the same time period, according to AOPC data. Luzerne County ranked fifth overall in the state for services provided in 2022.
Last year, about 80% of the requests across Pa. courts were for Spanish (38,647), with Nepali (1,335), Mandarin (1,189) and American Sign Language (1,071) trailing by a large margin.
Thelma Kennedy, a certified Spanish interpreter with Luzerne County Courts for over 15 years, said she’s seen that demand increase firsthand over the last five years. To assist with the workload, Luzerne County hired a second full-time Spanish interpreter last year, she said.
That’s a rarity, according to Paul Hindmarsh, district court administrator in Luzerne County. Most counties don’t even have one dedicated Spanish interpreter on their payroll, relying on freelance or agency-provided specialists for proceedings.
Besides Luzerne, only five other counties boast a full-time interpreter on their courthouse staff, per AOPC’s roster. Philadelphia has four full-time Spanish interpreters; Bucks County has two; and Northampton, York and Lancaster counties each have one.
“A lot of the people in the courtroom regularly don’t understand just how well trained they are and how capable they are,” said John Kennedy, language access coordinator for Luzerne County. “They’re not just bilingual people.”
And a common misconception, he said, is that interpreters are only helping people charged with crimes.
On many occasions, “they’re everyday people who need access to the judicial system," Kennedy said. "We provide access to the courts for a lot of good people who just need help in some way from the courts."
That could mean assisting with protection from abuse orders or making sure someone complies with probation.
Kennedy contacts specialists throughout the region to interpret in Luzerne County, where American Sign Language ranks second in the court system. “Vietnamese, Russian, Ukrainian, Haitian Creole has become fairly prevalent. Arabic Mandarin and Cantonese are fairly common,” he said.
Marybeth Bergen-Gallagher is the only certified ASL court interpreter based in Luzerne County and one of only a few in Northeast Pa. She’s been asked to travel throughout the state.
“I’m probably in Luzerne County about once a week on average, but I work all over Northeast Pennsylvania in different county courthouses and with magistrates,” Bergen-Gallagher said, adding she’s traveled to Delaware County and assisted courts in the Northern Tier.
Interpreters must pass a strict four part exam before being added to the state’s approved list of certified language specialists. An oral exam weeds out most applicants, said Natalia Petrova, head of the AOPC’s interpreter certification program.
Petrova estimates only one in five people pass the oral exam on their first try. The difficulty lies in translating legal jargon in real-time.
“It's a well known issue throughout the country, not only in Pennsylvania. It's a really very intense and complicated skill that somebody must possess to interpret simultaneously,” Petrova said.
Maria Jose Detweiler, a native Spanish speaker from Uruguay and Luzerne County’s second full-time hire, said she had to take the exam more than once. She worked as an interpreter in California, Arizona and Ohio before moving to the commonwealth.
Interpreters joke that even the bar exam for lawyers has a better success rate than the court interpreter exam, she said, adding that more training opportunities for legal translation could improve outcomes. She’s seen more English language learning programs in the border states where she’s worked compared to Pa., she said.
“I think the needs are going to only increase,” she said, especially for Spanish. Still, Detweiler said, she’s glad the AOPC exam provides a high threshold.
Accuracy is important whenever there’s legal uncertainty, she said.
Learn how to request an interpreter in Pennsylvania courts: pacourts.us/language-rights.
