Paul A. Osborn is a Forensic Document Examiner, commonly termed a handwriting and typewriting identification expert, and maintains offices in Union, New Jersey. He has been qualified as an expert and has testified on the subject of disputed documents in civil and criminal courts on more than four hundred and fifty occasions in the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and seventeen other states, as well as in the Panama Canal Zone, Virgin Islands and Canada.
He has studied the leading books on the subject, collected reference material, conducted numerous experiments and, in fact, has devoted all his time to the investigation of disputed documents since 1953. This includes the examination of handwriting, typewriting, inks, paper, writing instruments, photocopiers, determining the sequence of writing, showing obliterations and erasures and other questions related to documents. He has files of national systems of handwriting as well as many foreign systems, maintains records of makes and models of typewriters and printers, maintains specimens of various inks, has annual records of paper manufacturers and a good deal of other reference material.
He is presently associated with his son, John Paul Osborn, and was associated with his father, Albert D. Osborn, for nineteen years. He was also associated with Francis D. Murphy for four years who was previously the document examiner for the New York City Police Laboratory.
As part of his training for this work, he took a course of study over a period of three and a half years under the direction of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners. He is presently an active member and served as the Society's President from 1990 to 1992. Mr. Osborn is also a Fellow and former Questioned Documents Section Chairman of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. In 1992, Mr. Osborn was awarded the Gesellschaft Fûr Forensische Shriftuntersuchung E. V. Medal of Recognition for Outstanding Merit from the European Society of forensic document examiners.
He has all of the necessary equipment and instruments used in this work, including different types of magnifiers, microscopes, measuring plates, lighting instruments, projectors, infrared and ultraviolet light outfits, a variety of photographic equipment, electrostatic detection apparatus, video spectral equipment and other instruments.
Mr. Osborn did this work a number of years for the State Police of New Jersey and frequently does work for state and federal prosecutors, as well as defense attorneys in criminal cases. Mr. Osborn has extensive experience in the examination of questioned medical records, as well as other matters involving civil litigation. He has lectured on the subject many times, to groups at Indiana University, the New York Law School and Brooklyn Law School, as well as many banking and bar associations. A number of articles written by Mr. Osborn have been published in leading journals.
