for cross-language record integrity
— Guarding the integrity of the cross-language record in the delivery of Justice in the United States —
The Foundation for Cross-Language Record Integrity seeks to become the institutional voice and forensic authority of legal translation and cross-language evidence. It exists for a single purpose: to hold cross-language evidence to the same evidentiary standards and foundation requirements that govern all other evidence in the courts of the United States.
Although a permanent component of justice, the cross-language record stands ungoverned — an unregulated channel through which infirmity has historically entered without any institutional mechanism to detect it, and therefore without regard to which party it ultimately favors or prejudices.
No category of evidence would be permitted to stand in this condition. The Foundation exists to end this.
The Foundation seeks to establish the foundations for the cross-language record: promulgate the doctrines, protect its practitioners, and issue the language for a new evidence code section that protects all cross-language evidence.
for cross-language record integrity
501(c)(3)
The principal structure of the Cross-Language Record Project, from which all other efforts proceed. Funds the committees, the foundational language for doctrines and protocols for the bench, parties, and practitioners, education, and all work that sustains the structural integrity of the cross-language record.
of Cross-Language Record Practitioners
501(c)(6)
The office of legal translators and forensic linguists, the practitioners and sole guardians of the cross-language record.
Non-profit services provider · In development
A non-profit services provider and affiliate of the Foundation, bound by a duty to the profession and the record.
Standing committees, funded and managed by the Foundation, each charged with one of the Foundation’s tasks.
Drafts the evidence code section for translation and cross-language evidence: model statutory language by which courts hold cross-language evidence to the same evidentiary standards as all other evidence.
for the Cross-Language Record Practitioners
A code of ethics and practitioner manual for the profession, based on proper linguistic and evidentiary authority.
Establishes the standards by which cross-language work is measured, and the board charged with applying them to the practitioners.
Seeks to establish legal translation and forensic linguistics as universal service categories within the LEDES system, and develop the billing code items proper to the functions of the cross-language record.
Tasked with developing a public curriculum for the cross-language record practitioner, and the public relations work to educate the public on matters of linguistics and translation.
The Foundation, to be organized as a 501(c)(3) public charity, will be dedicated to guarding the integrity of the cross-language record in the United States.
The Foundation recognizes Legal Translators (Judicial Interpreters) as the sole reporters and guardians of the cross-language record. The development and protection of the legal translation profession is in the interest of the development and protection of the cross-language record itself. The Foundation’s work — through legal analysis, judicial papers, formal correspondence, and the development of institutional standards governing evidentiary integrity of the cross-language record — addresses a structural gap the profession has historically lacked the means to resolve. To that end, the Foundation seeks to establish the platform by which the Cross-Language Record Practitioners (judicial interpreters) may defend the record and govern their office.
The Foundation’s focus is the function of the cross-language judicial record. We are now accepting Founding Signatories from both federal and state judicial interpreters from all states, and attorneys and all other practitioners who work with the cross-language record. There is no fee. You will be notified once the Foundation is formally registered.