Signature styles keep graphologist on track.

ANDREA McNichol studied criminology at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1960s, and settled on her career path when she took a course in authenticating documents--as well as related studies as a behavior profiler. She founded Graphology Consultants International in 1980 to combine both areas of expertise, handling both routine and prominent cases.

"I apprenticed in questioned documents at Alameda County and Contra Costa County police and sheriffs departments--from '68 to '74. I learned from the masters, or people that called themselves masters. 1 could not be a police office because I was not tall enough--I'm 5 feet 2 inches tall--but I was determined to be an examiner of questioned documents.

"You assess every feature of a person's handwriting: Size, shape, spacing, letter peculiarities, beginning and ending strokes, baseline habits, what speed you write at, what your writing pressure is. The minute that implement strikes the paper, everything is assessable, everything is measured.

"Something may affect those habits. You may get drunk. You may develop Parkinson's disease. But a skilled document examiner will always know if it is or is not your writing.

"I charge a $500 retainer, and $300 per hour. It can go up and down depending on need. I will give my services gratis to individuals who are unable to pay and I feel they have a very good case. And those include prisoners, sometimes.

"I am busy all day long, night and day and on the weekends, too. I would say I get five cases a day. A simple signature case doesn't take any time. If it's something where someone's suspected of embezzling and there are hundreds of documents to go through that might take weeks. And it's never the same twice. It's a wonderful profession.

"Recently, the wife of a well-known person showed me a letter she found in her husband's drawer. It was a love letter that was written to her husband a few years ago. It had a signature something like 'Your treasure.' And then she produced another letter which she had recently found and wanted to know if he had one lover or two.

"He had two. She was afraid it was the same person, disguising her writing.

"I was retained by CNN, which interviewed me on how we would know (certain documents were written by) Josef Mengele. I looked at his known authenticated exemplars in Germany, and this handwriting of the man who had drowned in Brazil to see if it was the same person. And in my opinion, it was."