The Washington Administrative Office of the Courts' Language Interpretation Needs Dashboard combines court-user and community population data to inform courts' local language access planning and their work to provide equal access to justice and access to court services and programs for all individuals regardless of their ability to communicate in the English language.

Any of the following three pathways are suggested uses for the dashboard:

Start with a court
Selecting a court using either the map or dropdown filter addresses the following questions about limited English proficiency (LEP) in Washington courts:

1. How many LEP individuals come into contact with the court? The dashboard displays the yearly average of number of people requesting spoken language interpretation in that court by language
2. How many LEP individuals live in the geographic area served by the court? The dashboard displays the estimated percentage of adults with limited English proficiency by language residing in the selected court’s service area (an area inclusive of 90% of court users over the past four years)
3. Are characteristics of people who are court-involved consistent with local context? The dashboard displays a comparison of observed versus expected characteristics of the court-involved population given the characteristics of the service area on two measures – LEP population share and LEP language diversity

Start with a language
Selecting a language group from the estimated annual spoken language requests in courts addresses the question, "Which courts have provided spoken language interpretation for this language in the past four years?". This information can support:

1. Collaboration and resource sharing between courts with similar interpretation needs
2. Addressing emergent need through peer outreach to colleagues who more regularly provide interpreter services for a given language
3. Community engagement with local stakeholders or other organizations serving a language group in other contexts

Start with system outliers
Statewide, courts' share of cases with people requesting spoken language interpretation is associated with the share of local population who are limited English proficient (r = 0.69). Similarly, the diversity of languages needing interpretation in a given court is associated with the language diversity of surrounding population (r = 0.65).

Selecting courts with a greater or lower than expected share of LEP population given local context, or a greater or lower than expected diversity of languages than expected given local context, addresses the question, "Do people in court reflect the surrounding community?"

Differences between what is observed and what is expected in a court given its surrounding service area can be explored to identify systemic barriers and opportunities to provide equal access to justice and access to court services and programs.