The debate surrounding the rights and obligations of liaison interpreters juxtaposes two positions, viz. interpreting and advocacy. There being increasing pressure from some academic quarters to enhance the role of the legal interpreter with the advocacy functions that interpreters often fulfill in social settings, this paper investigates the implications this might have for interpreters working in convention refugee hearings. It is argued that in these cases often the weakest members of the profession interpret for the weakest members of society and that an expansion of the interpreter’s role could increase their clients’ ‘well-founded’ fear even further or could raise unrealistic expectations in the refugee applicant and exert an unbearable pressure on the interpreter.