Sharon Caserta, Esquire, CI, CT, CSC, SC:L, Equal Justice Works Fellow, is an attorney at Jacksonville Area Legal Aid Inc. (JALA) she manages the Deaf/Hard of Hearing Legal Advocacy Program which provides direct legal representation in northeast Florida, and provides strategic advocacy state wide for Deaf, hard of hearing and deaf-blind individuals. Her practice area is mainly ADA, 504 and civil rights litigation, and has been admitted to practice in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. She is currently a member of the Disability Law Committee of the Florida Bar, and a former member of The Florida Supreme Court's Fairness and Diversity Sub Committee on Court Accessibility. Prior to becoming an attorney Ms. Caserta was a freelance interpreter for 20 years working primarily in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. She has extensive experience interpreting in legal settings, working with CDIs/DIs, and was the founder of the NH Legal Interpreter Referral Service which provided legally trained interpreters in all legal settings. Her teaching experience spans many years and includes training attorneys, law enforcement, court personnel and interpreters. She is the co-chair of the Legal System Accessibility Task Force in Florida which exclusively focuses on access to Florida's legal system for citizens who are deaf, hard of hearing or deaf/blind. She has two great kids, and an Italian husband with a great deal of patience.

War Stories: Exploring Ramifications of an Interpreter's Presence in Litigation

This hands-on workshop allows participants to analyze how the presence of an interpreter affects litigation and evidentiary strategies. Participants will be given various roles in a mock civil rights action and will work collaboratively through the discovery process, just as a litigation team would do, to consider both the ethical and legal issues of the case. This workshop is not a theoretical academic based session but rather it is designed to broaden the perspective of interpreters who work in the courtroom as to the challenges faced when "interpreters" become part of the litigation.