Certified Federal Court Interpreter for Spanish
Certified Court Interpreter, Tennessee Administrative Office of Courts
Certified Court Interpreter, Alabama Administrative Office of Courts
Cleared for Federal Grand Jury
A native of Washington, D.C., Heather Hayes lived in Europe for over 15 years before settling in the southern United States in 1997.
She is a certified court interpreter, a conference interpreter, and an expert in the preparation of bilingual transcripts for use as evidence, as well as the dissection of poorly or unethically prepared bilingual evidence. She has testified as an expert in both state and federal courts regarding such evidence, resulting in its exclusion.
In 1995, she earned a certificate of Excellence in Spanish as a Foreign Language by the government of Spain's official cultural entity, the Instituto Cervantes. Together with her colleague Jesús González Torres, she was a co-founder of the Madrid language solutions company, Target Translations.
Always strongly interested in minority languages, through self-study and immersion, she has become fluent in Catalan and is a staunch advocate for its use and protection. In 2000 she was awarded a certificate of fluency from the Catalan government (Generalitat de Catalunya).
Ms. Hayes has been a presenter at several TAPIT conferences (Tennessee Association of Professional Interpreters and Translators), and acts as a mentor in the fields of translation and interpretation. She has also given CLE presentations for attorneys.
In March of 2016, she was cleared to interpret for Federal Grand Jury.
Through SELTINET, Ms. Hayes is also a member of NAJIT , the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators.
She also is a member of the National Language Service Corps.
She lives on a small farm in southern Middle Tennessee with her husband, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, and dairy goats.
She may be reached by phone or text at (931) 256-0272, or email at