Deposition, hearing and hospital interpreting across the US for the parent or spouse whose English stops short of cross-examination, plus certified translation of Lithuanian records.
Prism Linguistics provides Lithuanian interpreters for depositions, court hearings, medical appointments and USCIS interviews anywhere in the United States, in person, by phone or by video, together with certified English translation of Lithuanian civil status extracts, older bilingual certificates, diplomas and police clearances.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
A call for a Lithuanian interpreter usually comes from an attorney or a hospital, and the person who needs one is almost never the person who dialed. It is a parent brought over after retirement, a spouse who arrived last year, or a witness whose everyday English carries a meeting but not a cross-examination. Prism's office is in New York; the interpreters are spread across the country and assigned by where the appointment is, in person from nearby or by phone and video the same day.
Lithuanian is a small language in the US, some 36,000 home speakers on the 2017-2021 American Community Survey, and it clusters hard. Illinois holds the largest community by a wide margin, the legacy of a century of Chicago settlement, with smaller pockets around Cleveland, New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. That geography shapes how we staff. In and around Chicago an in-person Lithuanian interpreter is a short drive away; in Denver or Nashville the honest answer is often video, with an interpreter travelling only when the court insists on a person in the room.
Russian is not a substitute. A booking desk that cannot find Lithuanian quickly will sometimes offer Russian instead, on the reasoning that anyone raised before 1990 learned it at school. They did, under occupation, and many will not testify in it; the evidence comes out clipped and guarded, and the transcript reads that way. Book Lithuanian. If the witness prefers Russian, they will tell us, and then we send Russian.
No state court system runs a certification exam in Lithuanian, so there is no certified Lithuanian court interpreter to be had anywhere in the country. What courts accept instead is a qualified interpreter who can show training and experience, sometimes after a short voir dire by the judge. We tell the clerk that in advance rather than let it surface on the morning of the hearing. Most of our Lithuanian court work is civil: depositions, divorce and custody hearings, the occasional injury trial. Prism is a private agency rather than a court-appointed vendor, and courts use us for Lithuanian because the alternative is a continuance.
The Lithuanian patient who needs an interpreter is typically over seventy. Consent forms, a cardiology consult, the conversation about hospice: these are not moments for a grandchild to translate, and any hospital that takes Medicare or Medicaid must supply a Lithuanian interpreter at no charge to the family. Few families are told. For a scheduled appointment we send someone in person where the network allows; for an admission at two in the morning, video reaches the bedside in minutes and a phone line reaches it faster.
USCIS work in Lithuanian is thinner than in most languages because Lithuanians travel on EU passports and most immigrate through employment or marriage rather than asylum. What remains is the green card interview for a spouse who is not yet comfortable in English, and the naturalization interview for an elderly parent who qualifies for the English exemption on age and years of residence. At a marriage-based interview the officer is listening for consistency between two accounts, and an interpreter who paraphrases can manufacture a discrepancy that was never there.
Two people from one family can hand us two entirely different birth records. The one ordered recently is an extract from the civil status register, issued by the municipal Civil Registry Office (Civilinės metrikacijos skyrius) on a form fixed by Lithuania's Minister of Justice, because the country stopped issuing certificates at the start of 2017. The older sibling's is a Soviet-era booklet or a 1990s certificate, printed in Lithuanian and Russian, naming a registry that has since been renamed. Both are valid. The translator's job is to call each what it is and keep the issuing body as it appears on the page.
Surnames need the same care. Lithuanian is the last language in Europe whose feminine surname endings announce marital status, so a husband Petrauskas appears with a wife Petrauskienė and a daughter Petrauskaitė, and a US driver's license may have flattened all three to Petrauskas. An officer reading that as three surnames issues a Request for Evidence. We spell the applicant to the passport, keep every relative's ending as printed, and attach a short note that explains the grammar. Diplomas from Vilnius and Kaunas for H-1B petitions and police clearances round out the work. Details of the service are at certified translation.
Tell us the date, the city and the setting, or send a clear scan of the document. We reply with a fixed price and, for interpreting, a named linguist. Call +1 (833) 282 8883, email info@prismlinguistics.com, or use the quote form and you will hear back within 60 minutes during business hours.
Our only office is in New York, and our Lithuanian interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Lithuanian work is concentrated; the full list of 288 cities is below it.
Prism Linguistics is rated 4.6 out of 5 across 67 client reviews for its interpreting and translation work in the United States. That is the company-wide figure; we do not publish a separate rating per language because there is no honest way to measure one. If a Lithuanian assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.