The federal courts’ Telephone Interpreting Program (TIP), although available nationwide only since 2002, has saved an estimated $1.4 million – $700,000 in 2003 so far.

     “It has been a major cost-savings to this court,” reports Betty Griess, clerk of court for the District of Wyoming. “Our cases are moved in a more efficient and faster manner than when we were looking for interpreters to come to Cheyenne for all court hearings.”

     Chief Judge George Singal of the District of Maine also cites “considerable cost-saving,” and adds: “Telephone interpreting is especially useful when you have a need for the more esoteric languages. You’re not going to find, for example, someone in Bangor who is qualified to interpret Croatian.”

     TIP allows an interpreter at a remote location to deliver simultaneous interpretation of court proceedings for defendants and consecutive interpreting for the court record by means of a two-line telephone system.

     Savings result because interpreters can be used for multiple assignments on the same day, and because of reduced time-and-travel costs.

     “When we remodeled the 1960s-vintage courtroom in Bangor last year, we had it rewired to accommodate telephone interpreting,” Singal says. “There are portable earphones for the defendant, and everyone present can hear the interpreter putting the defendant’s words into English. That’s good because it’s public testimony. The defendant wears a tiny microphone to speak to the interpreter. Before, an interpreter was physically present and exchanging whispers with the defendant.”

     In the District of Nebraska, telephone interpreters are used for a wide range of hearings except trials, says Clerk of Court Gary McFarland.

     “Initial appearances, arraignments, detention hearings, suppression hearings, pretrial release violations, supervised release violations, change of pleas, motion hearings, evidentiary hearings – basically any and all hearings in front of the magistrate judge can feature telephone interpretation,” he says.

     McFarland surveyed his court’s courtroom deputy clerks about telephone interpreting. Here are some of the responses he received:

     – “Usually I can get an interpreter almost immediately, especially if the language is Spanish. Some of the languages, such as Vietnamese, Arabic or Cantonese, may take a little longer to find but ... the response is quick.”

     – “The TIP usually works smoothly, and the interpreters are qualified, accommodating, and professional.”

     – “It works very well ... The majority of the time everything goes very smoothly.”

     The Judicial Conference first approved a pilot program for telephone interpreting in 1989, and initial funding was provided in 1990. The Conference in 1994 approved the program for short, pretrial proceedings.

     Four “provider courts” – the Districts of New Mexico, Florida Southern, District of Columbia and California Central – can help other courts attain the services of interpreters in 28 languages. A court in need of an interpreter’s help can schedule it online at an intranet web site developed and sponsored by the Telephone Interpreting Working Group and California-Central staff.

     “It’s very easy,” Griess says. “We fill out the request on the web site and wait for a response, which is very timely.”

     To date in 2003, telephone interpreters have been used in more than 2,400 court events, more than those logged for all of 2002.