How to Choose an Interpreting Company in Los Angeles: A Buyer's Guide
Los Angeles County runs the largest trial court system in the United States, and the interpreting market around it is crowded with agencies, marketplaces, and individual contractors who all describe themselves in roughly the same words. The words do not separate them. Six questions do, and they are worth asking in this order, because each one narrows the field before the next one matters.
Verify the Credential Tier, Not the Adjective
In California, a court certified interpreter has passed the state’s written exam and bilingual interpreting examination in one of the languages the Judicial Council certifies, and is listed. A registered interpreter works in languages for which no certification exam exists, and has passed a written exam and oral proficiency exams in English and, where one is available, in the other language instead. Both are real credentials with real listings. “Qualified,” “professional,” and “experienced” are not credentials, and an agency that answers the credential question with one of those words has answered a different question.
Ask for the tier and the language. Then ask whether that interpreter is the one who will appear.
Confirm the Language Variety, Not Only the Language
A credential in a language is not a credential in every variety of it, and Los Angeles is where that distinction surfaces most often.
The county’s filings run through Spanish, Korean, Armenian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Farsi, Tagalog, and Russian, and several of those split in ways that matter on a record. Eastern and Western Armenian are different standards. Mandarin and Cantonese are not interchangeable, and neither reaches a Taishanese speaker. A client from Guatemala may speak Mam rather than Spanish, a misclassification that has produced overturned convictions.
The question to ask is not “do you have Spanish.” It is what the client speaks at home, and whether the agency confirms the variety before it confirms the booking.
Ask About Proceeding Experience, Not Only Language Experience
A fluent, credentialed interpreter who has never worked a deposition will slow one down and may not protect the record in it.
Ask what proceedings the interpreter has worked: depositions, arbitrations, examinations under oath, immigration hearings, criminal calendars. Ask whether they interrupt to request a repetition, because an interpreter who never interrupts a fast proceeding is not necessarily keeping up. Ask who covers a long day, since accuracy falls with fatigue before anyone in the room notices it.
Require Insurance and Confidentiality at the Agency Level
This is the question firms skip, and it is the one that matters when something goes wrong.
Ask whether the agency carries professional liability and general liability coverage, and ask for the certificate rather than the assurance. Ask whether confidentiality agreements are in place at the agency level, so they cover every interpreter sent, or whether each contractor signs separately and the firm is relying on a stack of individual agreements it has never seen. For any matter touching health information, ask the same question about a business associate agreement.
An independent contractor booked through a marketplace typically carries neither. The firm then holds the exposure it thought it had transferred.
Ask What Happens When the Interpreter Cancels
Every agency can staff a date booked three weeks out. The difference shows when the interpreter cancels the night before.
Ask what the substitution process is, who makes the call, and how the firm is told. Ask whether the replacement is held to the same credential tier, because the common failure is a quiet downgrade: a certified interpreter replaced by someone merely bilingual, with no one told. Ask whether the named interpreter appears on the written confirmation, since a confirmation without a name cannot be checked.
Get an Honest Answer About Turnaround by Language
An honest answer to “how fast can you get someone” depends entirely on the language.
Spanish in Los Angeles can usually be confirmed quickly. Korean is thinner than firms expect, and the certified bench concentrates in Southern California rather than spreading across the state. Armenian, Farsi, and the Indigenous languages of Mexico and Guatemala are sourcing exercises measured in days, not hours. An agency that promises the same turnaround for every language is describing a wish.
The useful question is what the agency will tell you when it cannot cover something, and how early. A firm that learns on Monday that Thursday is uncovered still has options.
What Good Answers Look Like
An agency that answers all six questions specifically, in writing, and without hedging is one worth booking. The credential is named and verifiable. The language variety is confirmed before the date is set. The interpreter’s proceeding experience matches the matter. Insurance and confidentiality are documented at the agency level. The substitution protocol is written down. And the agency tells you early when it cannot cover a language rather than confirming and scrambling.
These six questions sort the market faster than any list of adjectives, and they apply whether the matter is a deposition in Downtown LA, a hearing in Van Nuys, or an arbitration in Century City.
Kaplan Interpreting Services provides court-certified interpreters in Los Angeles for depositions, hearings, arbitrations, and client meetings, with the credential tier named on every confirmation and agency-level confidentiality in place before the assignment. Contact us with the language and variety, the proceeding type, the venue, and the date.
Not legal advice. Credential requirements vary by jurisdiction.
CEO & Founder
Born in Dallas, Texas, Alexandra grew up surrounded by Spanish, English, Arabic, and Italian. After moving to Venezuela, Spanish became her primary language. She holds a Master's in Healthcare Administration from Washington University in St. Louis and is a California court certified and medical interpreter.
She founded Kaplan Interpreting Services after seeing an industry that treated interpreters as interchangeable and clients as ticket numbers. She built a protocol-driven operation where every interpreter is hand-selected and credentialed for the specific setting, every client has a dedicated point of contact, and risk management is built into every assignment.
Her career reached a historic milestone when she interpreted the conversation between President-elect Biden and Pope Francis. That assignment, along with engagements for Nike and the Summit of the Americas, set the standard for every client engagement that followed.
"The same protocols that protected that historic conversation now protect every assignment we handle."