With the cost and demand for courtroom interpreters climbing annually in Wisconsin, the proposal is billed as an opportunity for county courts to capture the cost savings and efficiencies offered by artificial intelligence and machine-learning programs that seek to bridge language gaps. But AI and legal experts said they have serious concerns that the rapidly advancing technology is still years from being able to replace the skill and expertise of a certified court interpreter.
Florencia Russ, CEO of Transcend Translations and a certified translator with the American Translators Association, said the risks for mistranslations or errors in court proceedings — where individuals may be facing a jail sentence or offering crucial testimony — are far too high to incorporate unproven technology into a system built on the right to due process.
"I don’t recommend using AI in place of humans at this point at all," Russ said. "There needs to be a human in the loop anytime AI is used. Even if it translates things correctly, there’s context, there’s nuance, there’s words that have multiple meanings and it’s just not possible yet to have results that are accurate enough to be used in a court setting safely, legally or ethically, in my opinion.”
The proposal, co-authored by Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, and Rep. Dave Maxey, R-New Berlin, would allow county courts "to permit the use of AI or other machine-assisted translation tools as an alternative to, or in conjunction with, human interpreters in civil or criminal proceedings, certain municipal proceedings, and administrative contested case proceedings."
The measure also allows an interpreter to provide services via telephone or online link for criminal trials, which currently require in-person interpretation services. Many courts already allow for remote interpretation in other proceedings, such as hearings or civil cases.
"Importantly, counties that prefer to continue using human interpreters would retain the full authority to do so — this bill simply offers a flexible choice," the bill's co-authors wrote in a memo seeking cosponsors. "This legislation is essential for modernizing our court system and reducing the financial burden on counties."
Kapenga said the proposal seeks to capitalize on the rapid evolution taking place in artificial intelligence and see if specific programs geared toward language translation can be incorporated into the state's court system.
"I fully expect this will be a nationwide thing that everybody goes to," Kapenga said, adding that he envisions the bill to be the first step in implementing a pilot program that can be tested and refined as needed. The proposal does not identify a specific translation program, and would make the use of artificial intelligence in the courtroom optional.
"People will test them and they'll get comfort levels with the different platforms," Kapenga said. "That's why we're leaving it more wide open."
RISING COSTS
State statute requires that all individuals with limited English proficiency are entitled to a qualified interpreter during court proceedings. The Americans with Disabilities Act also guarantees those who are deaf or hard of hearing the right to an interpreter.
More than 167,000 Wisconsin residents, or nearly 3% of the state population, identified as speaking English “less than very well” in the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey .
Courtroom interpreters must pass a multi-step testing process in order to be certified in Wisconsin. The process includes an orientation, an oral proficiency review and oral and written tests. The state currently has 135 certified court interpreters on its roster, including 71 certified in Spanish and 64 certified in other languages. Forty-one of the Spanish interpreters live in the state.
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME A COURT INTERPRETER?
The role of a court interpreter is much more complicated than simply converting written text from one language to another.
The specialized nature of the field, paired with rising demand nationwide, means counties are spending more each year for qualified courtroom interpreters — sometimes contracting with individuals from across the country, who either travel to Wisconsin to provide in-person interpretation or provide services remotely. The bulk of those costs are absorbed by individual counties, with the state providing a partial reimbursement.
All told, county courts spent more than $3.7 million on interpreter services in 2023, according to the bill's co-authors.
"The beauty is that we’re now in a day and age when AI is able to help us with these things, and why not take advantage of that cost savings?” Maxey said.
DANE COUNTY COURT INTERPRETER COSTS
Waukesha County, for example, spent more than $182,000 on court interpreters last year, compared with just $50,000 spent in 2014.
While Waukesha has seen an increase in demand for Spanish and other language interpreters, "there has also been a sharp decrease in the number of local, in-state interpreters available to attend the proceedings in-person," Monica Paz, Waukesha County clerk of circuit court, said in an email.
Dane is currently the only county court in the state with on-staff interpreters — one full-time and two half-time staffers. The county also contracts with interpreters from across the country for various language needs.
The Dane County court system spent more than $171,000 on courtroom interpreters in 2014. Last year, the county spent more than $408,000 to hire more than 90 different interpreters. This year is on pace to surpass that, with nearly $118,000 spent in the first quarter of 2025 alone.
"It's certainly a significant issue, so I think in that sense we really appreciate the Legislature looking at this in any sense to try to be forward-thinking," Dane County Clerk of Courts Jeff Okazaki said of rising interpreter costs.
ACCURACY OVER EFFICIENCY
But Okazaki also raised concerns about replacing highly skilled interpreters with artificial intelligence in an area where proper translation could play a crucial role in a case's outcome. Legal jargon is dense and complicated, the meaning or use of specific words can vary based on region, and some languages like Spanish are gendered, meaning all nouns are classified as masculine or feminine. All those factors create challenges for artificial intelligence programs built to translate language.
"The whole idea behind interpretation is that they are interpreting meaning and not just translating words," Okazaki said. "That's the most important piece, and the software does not yet have the ability to do that."
Such translation tools continue to become more common. Maxey recalled a recent ride-along with a police officer in which Google Translate was used to communicate with a motorist.
DANE COUNTY COURT INTEREPRETERS
The Dane County court system contracted with court interpreters from across the country in 2024.
But Maxey also underscored the importance of providing an accurate translation.
“It doesn’t matter if they’re there for a simple speeding ticket or you’re on trial for your life," Maxey said. "It needs to be accurate, and that’s where I think that being able to look at what you said on the screen and know that’s what it actually translated.”
Mark Lemley, a lawyer and professor at Stanford Law School, said AI translation is quick and cost effective, but such programs still make mistakes.
"If the alternative is not having a translator, it's clearly an improvement," Lemley said. "But if the idea is to replace existing human translators, I worry that we will see inaccurate translations with no easy way to question them, and that judges and government officials will think they are more reliable than they are."
Annette Zimmerman, a professor in UW-Madison's department of philosophy and co-lead of the university's Uncertainty and AI Group, described the human review process for AI interpretation in the courtroom as "crucial for accuracy" because the technology does not yet guarantee perfect outcomes. In high-stakes courtroom decisions, a human interpreter's expertise and human judgment "is essential for disambiguating potentially confusing claims," she added.
"Human review and guardrails are incredibly important in a high stakes domain like criminal justice, where even one small error can have life-altering unjust consequences," Zimmermann said in an email. "I don't think that the fact that counties would be able to choose not to use AI plausibly counts as a meaningful guardrail, by the way. We need a regulatory framework in place that isn't up to counties to opt in and out of."
Human input is also critical to the nature of courtroom proceedings because those involved in the judicial system "ethically owe it to that person to engage with them on an individual human level to provide the justification for that sentence."
"Taking shortcuts and trying to save costs no matter what risks undermine the deeper purpose of the criminal justice process," Zimmermann said. "Efficiency in our public institutions is an important policy goal, but considerations of efficiency shouldn't outweigh our important individual rights and freedoms."
If Wisconsin courtrooms begin using artificial intelligence for interpreting purposes, Kapenga said constitutionality and due process will be a part of that discussion.
"The court system will always err on the side of the person whose rights are potentially being infringed on, Kapenga said.
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