The Ohio Supreme Court is training Ohio judges to ensure that language barriers do not interfere in the courtroom.

“We’re seeing more of individuals that have deficiencies with English all the time,” according to Allen County Domestic Relations Judge Matt Staley. Because of that, Judge Staley was interested to find out more at a training session on the Ohio Supreme Court’s new statewide remote interpretation service that is expected to be fully implemented early next year.

“We don’t have available to us that diverse cross section of individuals to rely upon that may have interpreter skills so this is great because it provides access to the interpreters in those situations without having to have geographically located within our confines those individuals that can physically provided it,” Staley added.

Bruno Romero, manager of the Supreme Court Language Services Program, helped judges and court personnel understand how best to use the free 24 hour remote service with interpreter services for nearly 200 languages available.

”It is yet one more tool for them to have available when live interpreters or rare languages are difficult to come by. They’ll be to call one number, in effect, and be able to connect with an interpreter in a very short time and be able to provide services to those individuals,” Romero said.

Providing interpreters on the phone is one part of a comprehensive program launched by the Supreme Court that includes a training video for judges and court personnel that explains Ohio’s interpretation rule, a public information campaign, and a complaint process.