The Graduate Certificate in Forensic Economics Program is designed to give persons with masters degrees or higher degrees special training in the requirements for preparing economic reports for selected areas of litigation.  Persons would ordinarily seek this certification as part of preparing for consulting work for litigation purposes, including testimony about damages and some other issues such as the statistical probability that employment discrimination has taken place.  Certification requires 15 hours of credits in courses that can be taken for credit as part of the regular Master of Arts Program at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.  Many students will complete three of those hours through an internship program, but students with substantial consulting experience may satisfy this requirement with either a fifth regular course or a master's level thesis on a topic approved by the director of the certification program. This program is currently inactive, but we anticipate providing one of the required courses in the Fall of 2006. 

This program is designed for persons with masters degrees or higher, though persons with certifications in actuarial science or public accounting may be admitted with less than a masters degree at the discretion of the director of the certification program.  Regardless of the degrees an applicant has achieved, an applicant must have the equivalent of the following training: Intermediate Microeconomic Theory; Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory; and Basic Statistics. Course work in Labor Economics and Law and Economics is recommended. 

This program will not automatically qualify a Graduate Certficate Recipient to testify in court. Admissibility in a courtroom is at the discretion of a trial court judge. No one credential can qualify anyone to be regarded by a trial court judge as being qualified to testify. Students should understand that the director of our program stands ready to issue an affidavit or an explicit letter making it clear that we do not regard completion of our program to be either necessary or sufficient for presenting testimony as an economic expert in a court of law. Our goal is to provide students with knowledge that will be useful to economic experts and to indicate levels of academic achievement in the area of forensic economics, not to substitute our judgement for the more focused judgment that will be exercized by the legal system. Letters of admonishment will be sent to any degree recipient who attempts to characterize our grant of Graduate Certificate as the sole basis on which that degree recipient claims he or she is eligible to testify in court.

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