Dozens of Brandeis Law students volunteer at expungement clinic that served hundreds

Expungement clinic February 2018
From left, Brandeis Law students David Woolums, Patrick Hughes and Kelsey Luttrell volunteered at the Feb. 17, 2018, expungement clinic.

Hundreds of Louisvillians had their criminal convictions sealed last week as part of a free expungement clinic staffed by local lawyers and students at the Brandeis School of Law.

About 40 Brandeis Law students volunteered at the day-long clinic, which was organized by law firm Wyatt Tarrant & Combs LLP; community organizations Louisville Urban League, Legal Aid Society, the Kentucky chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel, the Charles W. Anderson, Jr. Bar Association; and local lawyer and civic leader Stephen Reily. About 100 people overall volunteered at the Feb. 17, 2018, event.

While a final count is still being tallied, Andy Payton, Wyatt's chief marketing officer and director of recruiting, estimates the clinic served approximately 350 people. The clinic was set to run from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. But because of the high demand, several lawyers and law students continued working until 9:30 p.m.

"We couldn't have done half of what we did without (the law students)," Payton says. "People were so appreciative — even people who had been waiting in line hours and hours." When he arrived shortly before 8 a.m. to set up, there were already 50 people in line.

"In law, 'expungement' is the process by which a record of criminal conviction is destroyed or sealed from state or federal record. An expungement order directs the court to treat the criminal conviction as if it had never occurred, essentially removing it from a defendant’s criminal record as well as, ideally, the public record," according to the American Bar Association.

Expungements come with fees that can be a barrier to many people; in Kentucky, to expunge a misdemeanor costs $100 and to expunge a felony is $500. Reily, a client of Wyatt who is also on the board of the Louisville Urban League, committed $100,000 a year for three years to cover the fees from this clinic and clinics planned for the future. That effort is called the Reily Re-entry Project.

Having a criminal conviction can make it more difficult to find a job or rent an apartment. David Woolums, a second-year student, volunteered at the clinic and was moved by the number of people who came to have their records expunged.

"I was pleased to be a part of this effort to give people back a little bit of their lives but shocked at how enormous the problem was. Kentucky needs to make expungement automatic for some crimes so that a minor violation isn't a life sentence. Until then, I was and will always be glad to work with an army of great people from many different organizations who gave  more than they expected without flinching," he says. "I'm proud of the legal industry in Louisville and proud of my fellow students who worked like lawyers. We helped a lot of people get that much closer to normalizing their lives that day."

See news coverage of the clinic: