The U.S. Department of Justice called for local court reforms of interpreter services
The U.S. Department of Justice last year concluded that L.A. County’s court and the state’s Judicial Council need to do more for litigants with limited English-language skills. Free language services must be made available in all court proceedings, federal officials said. The investigation found that Los Angeles courts were allowing family and friends to interpret without judging their competence to do so, and that the state had about $8 million in unspent funds allocated for translators that “could have been used to cover thousands of hours of interpreter services without cost.”