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Interpreters for Internal Investigations and Witness Interviews

An internal investigation stands or falls on interviews, and an interview with an employee who does not fully understand English produces neither reliable facts nor a warning anyone can rely on later. Here is what the warning at the start has to achieve, how counsel works with an interpreter, and what an interview day costs.

Does the company have to provide an interpreter for an investigation interview?

We found no rule that requires a company to provide an interpreter for an internal interview, but the company conducting the investigation is the one that arranges it, and it is in its own interest to. An interview the witness only half understood yields facts nobody can rely on, and the protections counsel depends on assume the witness understood what was said to them.

In Upjohn Co. v. United States the Supreme Court held that employees' communications to company counsel in an internal investigation were privileged, noting among other things that the employees were sufficiently aware they were being questioned so the company could obtain legal advice. The investigation in that case covered payments by foreign subsidiaries, with interviews in the United States and abroad. State professional conduct rules add a duty on the lawyer: North Carolina's Rule 1.13(f), for example, requires a lawyer for an organization to explain the identity of the client when the organization's interests are adverse to the employee's, and its comment says care must be taken that the individual understands that the conversation may not be privileged for them. A warning delivered in English to someone who does not follow English achieves none of that. Who books us: outside counsel and in-house legal and compliance teams for counsel-led interviews, HR investigators for workplace complaints, and occasionally a witness's own lawyer, who brings an interpreter to check the rendering.

The warning at the start of the interview

Counsel gives the warning, not the interpreter. Whatever points your warning covers — who the lawyer represents and what may happen to what the witness says are the ones that matter most — say them one short sentence at a time and let the interpreter render each sentence in the first person. A dense legal paragraph read at speed is hard to render exactly in any language, and the exact wording is what counsel will be asked about later. Then ask the witness to say back, in their own words and through the interpreter, what they understood. A nod or "yes" in reply to a long English paragraph is not understanding, and the memo should not pretend it was.

Record in the interview memo that the warning was given in the witness's language, through which interpreter, and how the witness confirmed understanding. If counsel uses a written version of the warning, have it translated in advance and given to the witness to read, not improvised on the spot.

How counsel works with the interpreter

• Engage the interpreter through counsel and tell them who instructs them. How the interpreter's engagement bears on privilege and work product is a question for counsel, and it is better decided before the first interview than argued about afterwards.
• Use an outside interpreter, not an employee. An interpreter from inside the company may know the people involved, may later be a witness, and will be seen by the interviewee as part of the matter.
• Tell the interpreter the names of the company and the people involved before the first interview, so they can tell you if they know anyone. Nothing else about the substance needs to be shared.
• Decide what happens to the interpreter's notes. Interpreters take notes to render long answers; agree whether they are handed to counsel or destroyed at the end of each interview.
• The interpreter is not a second interviewer. They do not rephrase questions to make them gentler or sharper, explain what counsel "means", or comment on the witness's credibility afterwards.

Words, documents and statements

Investigations often turn on the words people used at the time: what a payment was called, how an instruction was phrased, whether something was a "commission", a "gift" or a "fee". Ask the witness for the exact words they used in their own language, and have the interpreter give the original word as well as the rendering when it matters. Use the same interpreter across all the interviews in one language, so the same word is rendered the same way for every witness.

Emails and chat messages in the witness's language put on the screen during the interview are read aloud in English by sight translation, which is slow and approximate; key documents should be translated in writing in advance. If the witness is to sign a statement, it must be read back to them in full in their language before they sign, and the statement should say so, with the interpreter's name. If the interview is recorded, the recording captures the interpreter too, which is the best check later on what was asked and answered.

Booking interviews

A two-hour witness interview by video with an employee at a foreign subsidiary is $160, with no travel; give us the time with its time zone. In person is $110 per interpreter per hour with a two-hour minimum: a day of interviews from 9 to 5 with one interpreter is 8 × $110 = $880, plus travel at $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location, confirmed before you book. A day of back-to-back interviews that runs without breaks may need two interpreters taking turns, $1,760. Witnesses in different languages need different interpreters.

Send with the request the dates, the number of witnesses in each language, whether the interviews are in person or by video, the names of the company and the people involved for the conflict question, and the documents that will be shown. Leave out the substance of the allegations unless counsel wants the interpreter to have it. Documents needed in writing in English are legal translation, a separate service.

By video, by phone or in person

Virtual interpreting runs on Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams, or over the telephone. It is quicker to arrange, costs less and carries no travel charge, and it suits appointments, calls and most meetings.

In person is what venues with their own rules tend to expect, and the right choice when documents are being signed or several people are speaking at once. Tell us the platform, or the city and the venue, when you send the request.

Languages

The standard-availability languages are: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, Polish, Italian, German, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Tagalog, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Serbian, Bosnian, Somali and Nepali. Every other language we offer carries the 25–30% limited-availability rate. If a language is not on that list it is not because we cannot do it — it is because the pool of qualified interpreters in the United States is small enough that we will not promise a date without checking.

Each language has its own page on what to watch for — dialects, names, dates, who the speakers usually are: see interpreters by language.

What it costs

Rates are per interpreter, per hour, and billed from the scheduled start time rather than from when everyone actually arrives.

• Virtual — $80 per hour, one-hour minimum. Zoom, Google Meet, Teams or telephone.
• In person — $110 per hour, two-hour minimum.
• Limited-availability languages — add 25–30%. Which languages those are is listed below rather than left vague.
• Travel for in-person work — $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location.

How the travel charge works out

Travel is charged at $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location, which means you can work it out rather than wait for a quote: a 20-mile round trip is $14, a 60-mile round trip is $42, a 150-mile round trip is $105. There is no separate call-out fee on top.

We will not pretend to know in advance where the interpreter will be coming from — that depends on the language, the date and the venue. What we do is confirm the interpreter and the exact travel figure before you book, so it is never a surprise on the invoice. Virtual assignments carry no travel charge at all, which is one reason most of what we do is virtual.

How booking an interpreter works

• You send the request with the form below: the language, the setting, the format, the date and how long it should last.
• We confirm before you commit: the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one. We reply the same business day, and no payment is taken at this stage.
• You confirm, and the interpreter is booked for your date.

What to have ready

The more of this comes in the first message, the fewer exchanges before you have a price:

• The language, the date, the start time and how long it should run.
• Virtual or in person: the platform, or the city and the venue.
• The setting and the subject matter.
• How many people need interpreting for.
• Any credential the venue requires of the interpreter.

Request an interpreter

Tell us the date, the language and the setting and we will come back with the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one — before you commit to anything.

Sources

What this page says about the rules was checked against these official sources on October 28, 2026. Rules change; the source is always the authority.

• Supreme Court of the United States — Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383 (1981), U.S. Reports (Library of Congress)
• North Carolina State Bar — Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 1.13 Organization as Client, paragraph (f) and comment [10]

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