Working with Non-English Speaking Clients: A Guide for Immigration Solicitors

Immigration law firms routinely work with clients who speak little or no English. Whether it’s an asylum seeker from Eritrea, a spouse visa applicant from China, or an overstayer from Albania, effective communication is both a professional obligation and a practical necessity. Getting it wrong can mean missed deadlines, inaccurate witness statements, or regulatory complaints. This guide covers what solicitors need to know.

Your SRA Obligations

The Solicitors Regulation Authority expects you to communicate effectively with every client, regardless of their language. This is not optional guidance — it is embedded in the regulatory framework that governs your practice.

The SRA Principles require you to act in the best interests of each client and to provide a proper standard of service. The SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors (paragraph 3.2) goes further: you must ensure that clients receive information in a way they can understand. If a client cannot understand English sufficiently to give informed instructions, you are obliged to arrange appropriate interpreting.

Failure to ensure effective communication can constitute inadequate professional service. The Legal Ombudsman has upheld complaints on this basis, including cases where solicitors proceeded with instructions that the client had not genuinely understood. The consequences range from compensation orders to referrals back to the SRA.

It is worth noting that the SRA does not mandate any specific interpreting method. It does not require a DPSI-qualified interpreter for a routine consultation. What it requires is that communication is effective — and that you can demonstrate it was effective if challenged.

The Practical Challenge

The regulatory obligation is clear. The practical reality is more difficult. A busy immigration firm may handle 10 to 20 different languages across its caseload at any given time. Common languages such as Arabic, Urdu, and Polish are relatively easy to source interpreters for. Less common languages — Tigrinya, Dari, Kurdish Sorani, Amharic — are another matter entirely.

Booking an in-person interpreter for an initial consultation is expensive and slow, typically requiring 24 to 72 hours’ notice. For urgent matters — a client facing removal, a bail hearing at short notice, a Home Office interview preparation — that lead time is not always available.

Clients often arrive at the office without appointments. They telephone needing immediate guidance on a decision letter they have just received. They attend with family members who speak some English and offer to translate. Under legal aid rates, absorbing £100 or more in interpreter fees for every single interaction is simply not sustainable for many firms.

The result is that many firms make compromises. Some rely on bilingual staff members who are not trained interpreters. Others allow family members to interpret. Both approaches carry significant professional risk.

Why Family Members Should Not Interpret

Using a family member as an interpreter is one of the most common shortcuts in immigration practice — and one of the most dangerous.

• Conflicts of interest. In domestic violence cases, family visa applications, and asylum claims involving family dynamics, a relative may have their own interests at stake. A spouse who is also the sponsor has an obvious conflict. A parent may not accurately convey a child’s account.
• Accuracy concerns. Family members frequently omit information they consider embarrassing, soften difficult details, or add their own interpretation. They are not trained to render meaning faithfully and completely.
• Confidentiality risks. Legal professional privilege depends on confidential communication between solicitor and client. Introducing a third party who is not bound by professional duties can compromise that privilege.
• Children interpreting for parents. This should never occur in a legal setting. It places an inappropriate burden on the child and produces unreliable communication. Courts have been critical of this practice.

The Legal Ombudsman has specifically criticised firms for relying on informal interpretation arrangements. If a complaint arises and your file note says “client’s daughter interpreted,” you are on weak ground.

Interpreting Options for Law Firms

Option	Cost	Availability	Languages	Legal Suitability
In-person interpreter	£50–150/hr + travel	24–72hr booking	Limited by region	Best for complex hearings
Telephone interpreting	£1–3/min	5–15 min connect	150+	Good for quick calls
LingoVoice (Real-time AI)	£1.50/min	Instant	260+	Good for consultations & meetings
Family member	Free	Immediate	1 language	Not recommended

Legal Privilege and Confidentiality

Solicitors rightly ask about confidentiality before adopting any communication tool. The position with LingoVoice is straightforward.

Conversations through the platform are encrypted in transit. No conversation data is stored after sessions end. The platform does not retain transcripts unless the user explicitly chooses to save them. There is no recording, no logging of message content, and no third-party access to session data.

That said, there are contexts where a qualified human interpreter remains necessary. PACE interviews at police stations require an appropriate adult and interpreter under the statutory framework. Court and tribunal hearings use court-appointed interpreters. Complex psychiatric or medical-legal assessments benefit from an interpreter who can provide cultural mediation alongside linguistic accuracy.

For the majority of day-to-day immigration work — solicitor-client consultations, file reviews, taking instructions, explaining decision letters, preparing witness statements, and general case management — real-time AI interpreting provides adequate confidentiality and practical communication.

A Practical Workflow

Here is how a typical client meeting works with LingoVoice:

1. Client arrives. Your receptionist identifies the language need — the client can simply point to their language on a phone or card.
2. Solicitor creates a LingoVoice room. This takes roughly 30 seconds in any web browser. No software to install.
3. Client joins on their phone. They enter the room code at lingovoice.ai — no account required, no app download, no registration.
4. Solicitor speaks in English. The client sees the translation instantly on their screen in their own language.
5. Client responds in their language. The solicitor sees an English translation appear immediately.
6. Both text and voice are supported. The client can speak into their phone’s microphone if they prefer not to type. The solicitor can do the same.
7. Meeting ends. No data is retained on the platform. The solicitor makes their own attendance note as usual.

The entire process from “client walks in” to “interpreting is live” takes under two minutes. There is no booking, no waiting on hold, and no minimum session length.

Cost Analysis for Immigration Firms

The following scenarios illustrate typical costs across the three main interpreting methods:

Scenario 1: Initial 30-minute consultation

• In-person interpreter: £75–150 (plus travel and minimum booking fees)
• Telephone interpreting: £30–90
• LingoVoice: £45

Scenario 2: 15-minute follow-up call

• In-person interpreter: impractical for a brief call
• Telephone interpreting: £15–45
• LingoVoice: £22.50

Scenario 3: 10-minute document review with client

• In-person interpreter: impractical for a brief review
• Telephone interpreting: £10–30
• LingoVoice: £15

The per-minute cost is only part of the picture. The real saving lies in eliminating booking delays, cancellation fees, and the gap between when a client needs help and when an interpreter becomes available. When a client telephones with an urgent query about a removal direction, you can have interpreted communication running in under a minute — not in 24 hours.

For firms handling legal aid work, where margins are already thin, the ability to provide immediate language support without pre-booking is a meaningful operational advantage.

When You Still Need a Human Interpreter

It would be irresponsible to suggest that AI interpreting replaces human interpreters in every situation. There are contexts where a qualified, professional interpreter remains essential:

• PACE interviews at police stations — the statutory framework requires a human interpreter
• Court and tribunal hearings — the court provides and pays for interpreters; this is not a cost borne by the firm
• Complex psychiatric or medical-legal assessments — where cultural mediation and nuanced understanding are critical
• Cases involving significant literacy barriers — where the client cannot read text on a screen and needs a cultural mediator alongside linguistic support

For everything else — initial consultations, progress updates, explaining Home Office correspondence, taking witness instructions, discussing evidence, and day-to-day case management — real-time AI interpreting works well. Most immigration solicitors will find that it covers the vast majority of their client interactions.

Getting Started

LingoVoice is free to try. You receive 60 minutes on sign-up with no credit card required. The platform is entirely browser-based — there is nothing to install on your firm’s computers, and your clients need only a phone with a web browser. They join with a room code. No account, no app, no personal data collected from them.

If you handle immigration work with non-English speaking clients — and most immigration firms do — it is worth running a session with your next client to see how it fits your workflow.