Moderator, Nico Stillwell, Attorney | ELM Law

After receiving their law degree from Washington University School of Law, Nico clerked on the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District for the Honorable Alok Ahuja. Since then, Nico has assisted clients in navigating litigation and arbitration matters across the country, including in the Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Circuits. Currently, Nico manages the appellate division for ELM Law, a plaintiff’s firm specializing in civil rights and discrimination-based litigation.

Hon. Jana J. Edmondson-Cooper, Former Magistrate/ Assisting Superior Court Judge, Cobb Judicial Circuit | Edmondson Consulting, LLC

A career public servant, Jana J. Edmondson-Cooper is a former judge, former senior federal prosecutor, former legal aid attorney, and former legal interpreter. During her tenure as a full-time Magistrate and Assisting Superior Court judge in Cobb County, GA, the 3rd largest county in the state, Ms. Edmondson-Cooper presided over thousands of civil and criminal matters involving housing , personal injury and other small claims, garnishments, domestic violence, stalking, probable cause/bond hearings, and warrants. She developed model forms and other best practices, adopted by the Court, to ensure the compliance with federal and state language access requirements. Immediately prior to her appointment to the bench, Ms. Edmondson-Cooper served as a bilingual senior federal prosecutor at U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), litigating complex and high profile labor & employment enforcement matters focusing on cases involving violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the “H” provisions of the Immigration & Nationality Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, & other federal labor laws while simultaneously serving as a Department-recognized subject matter expert on language access as an access to justice issue. In FY2021 she received the Secretary of Labor’s Williard Wirtz Legacy Award, a national award recognizing exceptional performance and accomplishments in public service that exemplifies accountability, responsibility, and emerging leadership skills that display the promise of future leadership in the spirit of former Secy. of Labor Willard Wirtz.

Ms. Edmondson-Cooper spends a significant amount of time working to alleviate language access & other critical access to justice (A2J) issues. Ms. Edmondson-Cooper has contributed to the development of local, state, & federal language access policies & the development of state and national curricula for training attorneys and judges on language access as an A2J issue. Appointed by the Supreme Court of GA, Ms. Edmondson-Cooper is a longstanding member of the Judicial Council of GA’s Standing Committee on Interpreters (fka S. Ct. Commss’n on Interpreters) & the Council’s A2J Committee. Ms. Edmondson-Cooper has authored several publications on language access including GA’s first benchbook chapter dedicated to the provision of qualified interpreters in civil and criminal proceedings which appears in the benchbook for several of GA’s classes of court. She also led the development of the Supreme Court of GA’s Model Administrative Protocol ( MAP). The first of its kind in GA and widely considered the first of its kind in any non-unified court system in the nation regarding the appointment of qualified interpreters, the MAP promotes the reliable and efficient provision of language services in state courts throughout GA , both for persons with limited English proficiency and for those who are deaf or hard of hearing. During her tenure with DOL, she led the development of a language access plan for the Office of the Solicitor, DOL’s legal department, the first language access plan agency-wide.

With over a decade of A2J experience, Ms. Edmondson-Cooper is also the President & Chief A2J Officer of Edmondson Consulting, LLC which seeks to improve access, promote equity, and preserve/ensure justice by providing A2J/language access consultation services to stakeholders nationwide. Full details of Ms. Edmondson-Cooper’s A2J work are available at www.linkedin.com/in/jjecesq .

Ms. Edmondson-Cooper’s commitment to access, equity, & justice has been acknowledged statewide & nationally, including, recognition by the Fulton County Daily Report as a rising legal star to watch, recognition by former Gov. Nathan Deal & the GA Commss’n on Equal Opportunity, selection to the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation (reserved for top 1% of lawyers and judges), selection to the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 2023 40 under 40 class & recognition by the National Bar Association and the American Bar Association as one of the nation’s top lawyers who exemplify a broad range of high achievement, innovation, vision, leadership, legal & community involvement.

Néstor Wagner, Director of Education | Southern California School of Interpretation

Néstor Wagner was born in Argentina. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1986 and his Master’s degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1990 from the University of Washington. He is a certified Medical, Administrative Hearings and Court Interpreter since 1989. In 1993 he founded the Southern California School of Interpretation in Los Angeles and quickly grew to four different locations throughout California and Nevada. He inaugurated a beautiful and spacious campus in 2002 in Santa Fe Springs and trained over 10,000 students from 2002 until 2020. Néstor has always been an innovative training leader offering specialized training for interpreters using the latest technology available. He launched the first online training program for interpreters in 2006 and fine-tuned it in 2012. By 2020, thanks to his innovation and inclusion of technology in all his training platforms, his students seamlessly transitioned from onsite to online training. His training headquarters and studio are in El Segundo, California where he continues to teach his excellent courses offering online and hybrid online platforms, reaching hundreds of new interpretation and translation students all over the world! Néstor is passionate about technology and teaching and welcomes A.I. technology as an innovative, exciting, and motivational training tool to improve his own training platforms. He recently earned a certificate from M.I.T. for “Designing and Building A.I. Products and Services” and is currently enhancing and preserving his teaching and renowned methodologies for generations to come. He will soon unveil a unique training product that has already been approved to train Superior Court interpreters in the East Coast. Néstor is excited to show us today what the future of technology and A.I. can do for us.

I. Primer on Translation and Interpretation Services Available | 2:00pm – 2:15pm

II. Ethical Principles and Guidelines in Serving Clients Across Language or Communication Barriers | 2:15pm – 2:30pm

III. Examples of Courtroom Guidelines for Using Translation or Interpretation Services in a Trial Setting | 2:30pm – 2:45pm

IV. Case Studies and Practical Scenarios | 2:45pm – 2:55pm

V. Q&A | 2:55pm – 3:00pm