Vol. 77, No. 2, February 2004

Making Justice Accessible to Our Newest Neighbors

by George C. Brown,
State Bar executive director

Wisconsin place names serve as excellent reminders of our state's early history. Cities like Berlin, Krakow, Boscobel, and Athens were named in remembrance of homelands or to attract recent immigrants from those countries to live and work there. Others, such as Allouez, Bonduel, and Marquette, were named for early white explorers, while Janesville, Port Edwards, and Weyerhaeuser were named in honor of their founders. Native American place and tribe names abound, from the Menominee, who were present here for thousands of years, to those tribes whose forced migration westward to Wisconsin and beyond, like the Stockbridge and the Chippewa, was the result of white settlement in the east.

Place names such as Fort Atkinson, Bad Axe, and Butte de Mort remind us of early Wisconsin battles. Other battles are remembered in the case law and statutory law of Wisconsin, such as those over the enforcement of fugitive slavery in Wisconsin in Ableman v. Booth; the 1889 Bennett Law, which required that classes be taught in English in order to meet the legal definition of a school under the compulsory school law; and the recent efforts by the Brown County Board to create an English-only ordinance.

The Brown County Board's decision is a reaction to the first significant influx of non-English speaking immigrants since the early decades of the last century. Issues over German, Norwegian, Polish, and other European languages long ago played themselves out. Most of the recent immigrants, however, speak Spanish or Hmong. The Wisconsin Supreme Court, with the active support of the State Bar, has sought state funding to properly orient, test, and certify court interpreters in court procedure and the law so that they can provide the best possible assistance to you and your clients before the courts in our state. Interpreters can be certified in 14 foreign languages and American Sign Language. The first group of 37 people took the final exam in Spanish in March 2004.

Your State Bar and several local bar associations who have received State Bar-funded Local Bar Grants are creating materials in Spanish and Hmong to help our new residents deal with everyday legal matters. In 2001, the Brown County Bar Association produced a Spanish language brochure on "What to Do in Case of an Accident." Also in 2001, the Marathon County Bar Association developed Hmong-language fact sheets on juvenile crime, CHIPS proceedings, and family law issues. It is currently developing a Hmong language small claims and landlord/tenant booklet and a Hmong legal dictionary. In 2003, the Wisconsin Hispanic Lawyers Association developed and distributed a Spanish immigration laws booklet and distributed it throughout Milwaukee.

Currently, the State Bar's Law Related Education Committee is translating its award-winning booklet "On Being 18" into both Spanish and Hmong. A Spanish language dubbed version of the State Bar's "Preparing for Your Deposition" client-training tape is available. And just released by CLE Books is a Spanish/English glossary of legal terms, "Critical Terms in Criminal Proceedings in Spanish and English," by Wisconsin attorneys Ronald Benavides and Luis Cuevas. Available for only $10 plus tax, shipping, and handling, the book also contains several useful appendices, including the Wisconsin court's interpreter request form, the court interpreters' code of ethics, and statutes relating to court interpreters.

It has been often said that the United States is a nation of immigrants. Through these many avenues and future ones, Wisconsin's lawyers and courts are working to make our system of justice more accessible to our newest neighbors.

Wisconsin Lawyer