This paper is concerned with a type of discourse in which two parties converse with each other via a non-professional interpreter/mediator. The authors claim that there are different types of mediating role in such a setting, and that the mediator’s role determines the criteria for what constitutes an adequate interpretation. The authors present an analysis of mediation in a legal advice setting involving a Turkish client and a German legal adviser, and suggest that in this situations there are two discourses running parallel to each other, and that the major difficulty of the mediator’s task consists in managing both, while relating them one to another.