Students will help people determine eligibility and prepare paperwork to file petitions to expunge criminal records or obtain orders of nondisclosure of criminal records. Expunging records allows people to legally deny offenses and erases records from criminal histories, mitigating future harm stemming from arrests that do not result in a criminal conviction. Orders of nondisclosure direct police departments and other agencies not to disclose criminal records on background checks, and allow a person to not disclose offenses on applications for housing or employment.
Students may volunteer for individual sessions OR to participate as Lead Student Counselors.
Four to six Lead Student Counselors will participate in all three sessions and be assigned a caseload of 2-3 clients. They will work closely with the Educational Equity Fellow and Pro Bono Scholars to obtain criminal records from courts and other agencies and draft petitions before the Expunction Project’s Work Session (March 3, 2015).
Organization
Texas Law Pro Bono Program Educational Equity Project
The Expunction Project is an internal project of the Texas Law Pro Bono Program’s Educational Equity Project.
Project Details
- Project Start Date
Intake Session: Tuesday, February 3, 5:30-8:30 pm
- Approximate hours of work requested
- For volunteers we request approximately 3 hours per session, with an additional 2 hours for training as necessary. For Lead Student Counselors we request 20-25 hours (including sessions and training time).
- Training
- Monday, February 2, 5 - 7 pm
- Skills used
- For volunteers: client communication and counseling; interpreting court records, document preparation; community education/outreach. For Lead Student Counselors: all above, plus investigation, obtaining records from courts and other government agencies, legal research, and drafting
- Project location
- 1701 Manor Road
- Address
- 727 E. Dean Keeton Street, Austin, TX 78705
- Class year preference
- 1L, 2L, 3L, LLM
- Required skills
- Spanish helpful but not necessary
- To Apply
- Submit email stating interest to Sarah Sedgwick at ssedgwick@law.utexas.edu. If applying to participate as a Lead Student Counselor, please submit a resume and a short (3-5 sentence) statement of interest.