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How
to Become a Private Investigator
The
Top 7 Trends for Private Investigators
Criminal
Defense
The
criminal defense investigator is the right arm of the
successful criminal defense lawyer. Your main goal is
to help the lawyer get an acquittal for your client.
To do this, you must find evidence to establish reasonable
doubt about whether your client committed the crime.
You
therefore need to research the law relating to the crime
that your client is charged with so you understand the
specific elements of the crime. You need to inspect
and examine all materials handed over by the prosecution.
You should also examine every police and prosecution
document, report and form, no matter how routine or
insignificant it may seem to look for any inconsistencies.
Your
job may also include examining the crime scene,
interviewing witnesses, and anything else that
the lawyer thinks might help win the case.
To
be a criminal defense investigator, you must have a
working knowledge of federal and state laws, and you
need a thorough understanding of the proper police criminal
investigation techniques, since your investigation will
closely follow theirs. You must also be painstaking
and persistent. The payback? Criminal defense investigation
is one of the most interesting, challenging
and personally satisfying specialties.
An
education in criminology and political science might
give you an edge in this field, and paralegal training
can also be quite an asset. There are also many training
courses and seminars that deal with criminal defense
investigation. I’ve listed a couple but you can do a
search to find countless others.
There
are also Investigative Internship programs available.
You can do a search to see if there are any available
near you. Some of them are only open to students enrolled
in a four-year university program or graduates of those
programs, which you may already be if you have been working
towards becoming a PI too. For example:
A
great opportunity to break into this field is to volunteer
at your local public defenders office.
Here
are some additional resources to help you get started:
This article is
an excerpt from the fabjob.com How to Become a Private
Investigator. Visit www.fabjob.com
for information.
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