Remote Mediation with Non-English Speakers
You’re ready for your remote video mediation. Everyone has the latest version of the technology and knows how to join. You rehearsed with your client; maybe you did a practice session with the mediator. You submitted the mediation confidentiality form and contact form. Now you can concentrate on the facts and the law.
Wait–What about the Interpreter?
At the beginning of every remote mediation, I confirm that everyone present has signed off on the confidentiality agreement. Yet, sometimes, against all the rules, someone else is there. Often, it’s a family member who is “just there to interpret.”
It’s inconvenient, but perhaps not a major issue. Just as would happen with an in-person mediation, someone who does have a role in the mediation can execute the confidentiality acknowledgement at the last minute. But some family members refuse documented participation in any court proceeding. Sometimes the party lacks the technology to return a signed document immediately.
Usually, the attorney can interpret for the client. Of course, the attorney is bound by confidentiality rules, but this arrangement often omits a few steps.
Get the Client What the Client Needs
An English language confidentiality agreement executed by a party who clearly needs an interpreter raises questions. Did the client sign a document without understanding it? If the attorney or a family member interpreted, that should be documented within the agreement. The person who interpreted should be a signatory, e.g.,
I translated this document and read it to Plaintiff in Spanish:___________________________________
The Settlement Agreement
Attorneys on both sides of the conflict should be concerned about the validity of an English-language settlement agreement when one or more signatories are not fluent in English. Nobody wants to be in in court after the fact because someone is contesting the agreement. The document should be read to the non-English speaker, and the interpreter needs to disclose and sign off on the settlement document. Ideally, lawyers will also provide a written translation of the document. Google Translate can create it quickly, but not necessarily with 100% accuracy.
Translating to Everyday English
You may think all the mediation participants are speaking English, but you have failed to realize that at least some of you are speaking a foreign language. The most common foreign language used in mediation is Lawyer, and Adjuster is also common. In some mediations, everyone except the claimant is speaking Insurance, but no one has thought to provide a translation.
While the professionals in the room are speaking one of these languages, the clients are often mystified, simply trusting that their counsel is looking out for them. Sometimes, though, a client’s inability to understand becomes apparent near the end of the day.
I have heard of mediations where, when it was all over, the client asked, “What just happened?” In one of my mediations, as the attorneys were finalizing the details of the settlement, the claimant asked me how a particular issue was being resolved—an issue that hadn’t been addressed at all. I had to make sure the attorneys addressed this concern with the claimant and each other.
Professionals who use jargon regularly can easily forget that people outside their closed community don’t understand what the professionals are talking about. Just as you would provide an interpreter to translate an international language, make sure everyone understands what is being said in the languages of Lawyer, Adjuster or Insurance.