Learned from Bosch: Legacy and looked up — It takes 6000 hours of compensated work as a detective to get a PI license in California. Suitable education can reduce it a bit, but not a lot. So it’s realistically only for ex-cops. You can qualify by working for a PI firm though.
Conversation
So despite romantic notions about PIs in fiction. It’s a sort of captive second career market for ex law enforcement . Not a Sherlock Holmes larp. bsis.ca.gov/forms_pubs/pi_
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Though it’s not clear to me what exactly it allows you to do that you can’t do as a sort of general consultant. It’s not like it’s a license to break and enter or do illegal surveillance…
Also 6000h is a LOT, so unclear to me how the hapless comic relief type PI characters would ever log that many paid hours 🧐
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I’m available to work as an unlicensed armchair detective. Bring me all the clues and witness interviews, preferably in wordle format, and I’ll solve your mystery.
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Heh I’d be terrible as a detective
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