My Answer to the Question “How is the career of court interpreting?”

A few months back, a commenter on r/CourtInterpreter asked the above question – I believe the poster has since deleted the question. Specifically, it was asking about Spanish interpreting, which is not my language, so this was my answer. Let me know what you think, if you agree or disagree, etc.

I enjoy it due to the variety and challenge of the work. The flexibility is fairly high, although that can be hard to adjust to at first if you’re not used to it, and last minute changes are very common. Autonomy builds as you get more experience and different types of work, leading to greater ability to choose your work, though it doesn’t happen overnight. Job satisfaction is high when you are able to be interpreting, and lower when cancellations, postponements and other delays keep you from interpreting, although you do get compensated for most of these. Pay will vary state to state so you will want to check your state as well as neighboring states to get a general idea. Since I don’t interpret in Spanish, I can’t give you a firsthand experience of a typical day for that language, but from interacting with Spanish interpreter colleagues, their days seem busy to me. Good luck with your studies, interpreting is an interesting field that makes a real impact and has a long history as well.