Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Updated State PI Licensing Laws

Pursuit Magazine, a free online magazine for professional investigators, has just posted the best list of private investigator license laws I have seen to date.

Today, I surveyed 6 websites in comparison for this information and I found NUMEROUS legal errors, outdated laws and dead links in all of them except for Pursuit's list... this is obviously because Stephanie Mitchell, the Editor, has a background in thorough legal research as a former paralegal.

They point out in their resource that a state P.I. license is not currently required in several states including Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi, and Wyoming, though some local jurisdictions in each state do require professional licensing at the county or city level. There are changes underway in Missouri and Pennsylvania.

My question is why would someone who cuts my hair or paints my wife's toes need a state license but someone who deals with the public trust not need a license and state mandated continuing education? That seems kind of silly to me, quite frankly!

All of that aside, Pursuit Magazine continues to innovate and push forward the standard of training and freely distributed industry information- great job!