Dr. Andy Benzo, Legal Spanish Advisor
Andy Benzo is an internationally recognized expert in legal translation, working professionally in the field for over thirty years. She obtained her degrees and certifications in technical, scientific, and legal translation in her native Argentina. She was employed by the Exxon Corporation to train its employees in commercial translation and was a lecturer in the regional Professional Translators Association. Subsequently in 1996, she received her Juris Doctorate degree from the Universidad National de Rosario and became a practicing attorney in Argentina. She continued her contributions to the educational community by lecturing in Political Law and developing a postgraduate course in Legal English Translation which she taught at the University Law School.
Dr. Benzo continued her studies in the United States, obtaining a paralegal degree from California State University, San Marcos. For six years, she instructed courses in the Translation & Interpretation Certificate Program of the University of California, San Diego Extension. These courses included Legal Translation, Business Translation, Introduction to Translation and Interpretation, Simultaneous Interpretation and Consecutive Interpretation.
She is a founding member of the Association of Translators and Interpreters in the San Diego Area (ATISDA) and served as its first President.
She is certified by American Translators Association (ATA) for English/Spanish translations and is a frequent lecturer at its Annual and Spanish Division Conferences. Upon invitation, she has made presentations at many other international conferences, including the XI Congreso Internacional de Traducción e Interpretación in México, Congresos Internacionales de UNINTERLingua Comunicación, V Congreso Latinoamericano de Traducción e Interpretación, and FIT (International Federation of Translators) World Congress.
She is a member of NAJIT (National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators) and serves as the Chair of its By-Laws Committee.
As the owner of a private translation company, she has worked for Fortune 500 companies, prestigious universities, labor unions, language service companies and law firms. Through this experience, she found the need to establish a uniform standard for Spanish legal translations in the United States. An insufficient portion of the American judicial and legal community understands that there are immigrants here from 23 distinct Spanish-speaking countries who each have their own dialects and regionalisms. It is imperative that Spanish translations of legal documents be equally accessible and understandable to all those contributing to our national society, whether they come from Cuba, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, or other countries.