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56 UCLA L. Rev. Discourse 1 (2008)

handle is hein.journals/ucladis56 and id is 1 raw text is: LAWYERS, CLIENTS, AND THE THIRD PERSON IN THE ROOM Gary Blasi IN TRO DU C TIO N ........................................................................................................................ 1 I. W H A T R O O M ? .................................................................................................................. 3 II. WHO Is INVITED INTO THE ROOM, AND FOR How LONG? ....................................... 4 III. W HO IS IN THE RooM ALREADY? ............................................................................... 6 IV. INTERPRETING SILENCE, GIBBERISH, AND CACAPHONY ........................................... 7 INTRODUCTION Muneer Ahmad's Interpreting Communities: Lawyering Across Language Difference1 succeeds admirably on two levels. First, Ahmad presents a careful analysis of a much neglected topic, the role of interpreters in mediating the relationship between a lawyer and a client who must overcome the most funda- mental of communication barriers-language difference. He challenges the uninformed view of a mechanical, black box ideal of interpretation, in which the role of the interpreter is to translate exactly the words of lawyer and client, as both impossible and undesirable. He then goes on to consider other possible ideal roles for interpreters before arriving at his preferred choice: the interpreter as linguistic and cultural expert. This conception fits neatly with a notion that has taken shape within the community of practicing interpreters and the academic field of interpreter studies: community inter- preting. Ahmad describes this practice as an interstitial enterprise that inhabits the many points of more routine contact between minority-language speakers and majority-language institutions, service providers, and power brokers.'2 Community interpreting, he explains, blurs the boundaries of traditional interpreters, frequently embracing cultural brokering, advocacy and conciliation as part of the interpreters' project.'3 Ahmad's analysis * Gary Blasi, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law. Copyright © 2008 Gary Blasi and the UCLA Law Review. 1. Muneer I. Ahmad, Interpreting Communites: Lawyering Across Language Difference, 54 UCLA L. REv. 999 (2007). 2. Id. at 1066. 3. Id. (citing Roda P. Roberts, Community Interpreting Today and Tomorrow, in THE CRITICAL LINK: INTERPRETERS IN THE COMMUNITY (Silvana E. Carr et al. eds., 1995)).