About the course

This course equips ASL interpreters with the foundational legal knowledge required to work effectively in juvenile and family court settings. You'll learn the critical distinction between delinquency and dependency cases, understand how court structure and jurisdiction work (using Michigan as a case study), identify every key player in the courtroom and their role, and examine how burden of proof shifts across different case types and proceedings. The course covers court flow for both delinquency and dependency cases, designated cases where juveniles are tried as adults, courtroom setup and positioning, jury trial rights, and key legal terminology. Interactive activities, knowledge checks, and an ethical dilemma scenario ground the material in real interpreting decisions you'll face on the job. This is Part 1 of 3.

Anna McDuffie CI, CT, SC:L & NIC

A native of Atlanta, Anna graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1996 with a Bachelor of Science in Interpreting for the Deaf. She began her career in Boston as a staff interpreter at The Learning Center for Deaf Children, a bilingual/bicultural school for the Deaf, and also worked part-time interpreting for graduate programs at Boston University. Anna returned to Atlanta in 1999 and has worked as a freelance interpreter for the past 25 years. She earned her Certificate of Interpretation and Certificate of Transliteration from RID in 1999, her Specialist Certificate: Legal in 2008, and her National Interpreter Certification in 2011. Anna began teaching medical interpreting workshops with her co-presenter, Heather Brown, in 2008, and together they co-authored Health Care Providers and the Americans with Disabilities Act, published in the Journal of the American Association of Physician Assistants in January 2011. She expanded into legal interpreting workshops in 2018. Anna is passionate about standardizing best practices for medical and legal interpreting — the driving force behind every workshop she designs. Anna lives in Marietta, Georgia, with her husband, Eric. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her step-daughter, Cece, her fur kids, Kiwi and Pippa, traveling, and playing tennis.