Careers: Profile of a Court Reporter

The Wall Street Journal (center-right financial newspaper, USA) has an informative profile of court reporting as a career option. One point from the article that caught my eye was that while training takes only two years and salaries are attractive (at least in the USA), one must learn to type at 225 words a minute with 97% accuracy!

Courtroom: Accreditation of Forensic Expert Witnesses & Daubert in UK

The issues of introducing accreditation for forensic expert witnesses and Daubert hearings have again been raised in the UK, this time in response to recent acquittals (where both sides had expert witnesses that disagreed) and the conviction of Gene Morrison on 20 counts of deceptively representing himself as a forensic expert with academic qualifications.

Several interesting things are discussed in this article (which basically reads like an opinion piece), including Daubert, whether a case should proceed when there is a serious dispute over forensic evidence, registration and accreditation of forensic expert witnesses, and the effect of privatizing forensic science service organizations.

(Hat Tip: TimesOnline, UK)

Courtroom: Jury Selection in USA

Psychology Today has an article on jury selection and who both sides use consultants to help decide who to excuse.

(Hat tip: Arts & Letters Daily, by way of GeekPress)