Legal Language Access Project

Fiscally sponsored by Family Bridges, Inc. - 030079

Abstract Number: 030079

April 2003

The Legal Language Access Project facilitates equal access to justice and serves low-income, minority, monolingual or limited-English proficient individuals through the provision of affordable interpretation and translation services. The Project recruits and trains multilingual individuals from the community in the ethics and practices of community interpreting, translation, and in the basic terminology and concepts of poverty law. The Project then refers selected interpreters and translators to paid and volunteer assignments with non-profit legal services providers, building the capacity of participating organizations to meet the needs of their very diverse clientele. The Project also works in collaboration with other organizations to promote and advocate for systematic change with regard to language access issues. LLAP currently provides interpreters and translators in 20 different languages including Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Korean, Farsi, and Khmer.

Several groups and individuals were involved in the development of the Legal Language Access Project over a five-year period. Both the East Bay Asian Consortium (EBAC), a consortium of over 30 organizations and individuals that advocate for the needs of Asian Pacific Islander American communities in the East Bay, and the Alameda County Bar Association's Community Projects Committee, a group of legal service providers and community-based organizations in Alameda County who work together to promote equal access to justice, identified language access as an emerging issue. In time, members of the two groups merged to form a committee charged with developing a plan for a language bank that would increase language access. After two years of focused, strategic planning, the lead partners of LLAP - the East Bay Asian Consortium, the Community Projects Committee, and Family Bridges, Inc. - secured funding for the project's first pilot year in July 2000, and the project was formally launched in late September of 2000.

Contact Information:

Karen Hoy
Project Manager
The Legal Language Access Project
C/o Family Bridges
168 - 11th Street
Oakland, California
Phone: (510) 839-2270 ext. 306
Fax: 510 839-2435
Email

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