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The Justice & Accountability Center (JAC), a legal services, policy advocacy, and public education organization helping people recover from the criminal legal system, announces an expungement clinic in Orleans Parish. Our community partners, the Dillard University Racial for Justice and the Power Coalition for Equity & Justice will be sponsoring a maximum of $10,000 for state mandated expungement filing fees on Wednesday, Jan. 11 at 5 p.m.
Participants must bring their background check, court minutes and bill of information. Attorneys will be present free of charge to complete their expungement petitions for filing. All participants will be served on a first come-first served basis. To be screened for financial assistance with filing fees individuals must be: 1) Orleans Parish residents with an Orleans Parish conviction, and 2) bring proof of income. Some individuals may qualify for a free expungement based on their income.
Louisiana still has, and will continue to have, the highest expungement costs of any state in America until the laws are changed. Nearly half of Louisiana children have a parent with a criminal record, making this bar to employment, education, and entrepreneurism a generational plague in a state that rates at the bottom of most quality of life and educational outcome studies. It is the goal of JAC to assist the community until the laws and requirements are changed through legislation.
JAC also regularly offers monthly reentry legal and expungement clinics, driver’s license clinics, know your rights sessions, fair chance hiring sessions, and trainings on how to file an expungement without an attorney utilizing our online app. “We are excited to get working citizens back to equitable wages and an expungement is a barrier which often prohibits their ability to excel. By offering these community gathering spaces, we seek to lessen the excessive legal burdens for people with criminal records so that they may be truly free and move forward in life,” said Sherie Thomas, Outreach & Engagement Director.
This clinic will be held on this Wednesday, Jan. 11 at 5 p.m. at the JAC office, 4035 Washington Avenue, New Orleans, LA. To qualify you must: 1) Be an Orleans Parish Resident with and Orleans Conviction, 2) Bring your court paperwork, and 3) Bring proof of income (your SNAP award letter and/or most recent pay stub).
A full listing of events is available at http://www.jaclouisiana.org/events.