Washington, DC, is the proud home to an active pro bono community among private law firms. Some of the pro bono work involves working with limited-English proficient and Deaf/Hard of Hearing clients.

Many law firms turn to Ayuda’s Community Legal Interpreter Bank to meet their need for interpretation on pro bono matters since our interpreter bank consists of top-notch interpreters, who collectively speak 35 different languages.

We hire only trained interpreters. What does this mean for the firms who use them? It means these firms enjoy the assurance of knowing that our interpreters have all:

• Completed at least 40 hours of foundation training in interpretation.
• Received specialized training in working with lawyers (including training in the attorney/client privilege, the unauthorized practice of law, and confidentiality).
• Signed confidentiality agreements for the work done through the interpreter bank.

In addition to providing interpretation expertise, we also handle all of the scheduling and billing for the assignments.

Interested Firms

If you have never used the services of the Community Legal Interpreter Bank and would like to, please contact us at  [email protected]. We are happy to:

1. Arrange a meeting with you to answer any questions that you might have.

2. Share with you the fee schedule for using our bank.

3. Provide you with a copy of the manual that we use to train interpreters on how to work with lawyers in and out of court settings.

4. Refer you to other law firms that use our bank.