Rauch Companies, L.L.C. P.O. Box 783 Millburn, NJ 07041

Tel 973-921-0800 Fax 973-921-0800 http://www.rauchcom.com Email: info@rauchcom.com

Oregon, a large western state with a growing diverse ethnic population, is committed to providing equal access to the courts for all of its citizens. Oregon now uses telephone interpreting as one way of dealing with the increasing demand for skilled judicial interpreter resources. Their telephone interpreting program permits the Oregon Judicial Department to use and manage the services of known Certified Court Interpreters from a few "Provider" sites to many "Receiver" sites.

In 2002, Oregon's Certified Court Interpreter Program started their telephonic interpreting program. Modeled after the US Court's Telephone Interpreting Program (TIP), Oregon started by having interpreters from Salem deliver interpreting services to courtrooms in Lincoln County and Tillamook County. The goal of the program was to show how the services of certified court interpreters could be distributed to remote areas of the state where there are few, or no, certified interpreters, or where it is inefficient to send an interpreter a long distance for a short cause hearing. The program would also show how simultaneous interpreting can be accommodated (preferred by some interpreters, judges and court staff) while also using consecutive interpreting from certified staff interpreters, contract interpreters and with overflow (including hard to source rare languages) picked up by commercial telephone interpreting services.

Some preliminary usage statistics were collected. The data is included at the end of this page.

In June 2003, The Oregon Judicial Department issued a purchase order to Rauch Companies, L.L.C. for 25 Receiver Site systems and 5 Provider Site systems permitting an expansion of Oregon's telephone interpreting program. Rauch Companies provided 25 Model 5004 Courtroom Conference Systems and 5 Model 1001b VoxOlom Interpreter Consoles. The 5004 is a stand-alone communication system permitting simultanteous and consecutive interpreting in a mid-sized courtroom with 1 to 4 non-English speaking litigants. The 1001b is a small telephone appliance that provides an interpreter with the means to monitor both English and non-English conversations and control the flow of the simultaneous interpretation. The systems were manufactured in New Jersey and shipped to Oregon nearly plug-and-play. Over the next few months staff from the Oregon Judicial Department will install the systems thoughout the state.

Please contact us for more information about Oregon's telephone interpreting program.

Telephonic stats for 4-02 to 11-02

No other telephonic hearings reported.

1-Tillamook came online 4-12-02, Lincoln came on line 4-23-02. Tax Court was getting services by phone well before 4-02, but they began using simultaneous in 7-02.

2-This is based in part on actual numbers, and in part on estimates from calls that we don’t have accurate records for. The average call length has remained at 20mins throughout the time period.

3-Averages are figured not counting hearings that canceled at the last minute.