On March 19, California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB)’s pre-law program hosted its expungement clinic. This clinic was the first of two sessions and served as an opportunity to gather the necessary information to determine the eligibility of people seeking expungement.
An expungement clinic is a legal aid event where people can receive services to seal their criminal records. Individuals seeking services are more likely to qualify if the record they are seeking to expunge is a misdemeanor or felony; offenses such as sex offenses do not qualify. Individuals must also have completed their probationary period and have paid any fines, fees, and restitution.
The expungement clinic is an attempt to alleviate the ongoing attorney scarcity in Kern County while also providing students interested in pursuing law with the necessary experience.
“This helps sustain our profession. We are in a legal desert in Kern County, which means we have more people that are in need of legal services than we have attorneys. So, this helps grow our homegrown pipeline,” said Dr. Jeanine Kraybill, Professor of Political Science at CSUB and Director of the Pre-Law program.
Kraybill noted that the internship program began around 2020 after discovering a similar legal clinic program at California State University, Chico. She consulted with local attorneys, including H.A. Sala, Alexia Torres Stallings, and David Torres, to gather feedback on her idea to place interns in local law offices for a semester. They agreed, and additional support was later secured from other neighboring law offices. In 2022, the first expungement clinic was offered.
Apart from benefiting future attorneys in the Kern County area, this expungement clinic also helps individuals in the community receive a second opportunity, along with preventing future crime from occurring.
“It’s really impactful on an economic level because it helps people get to that next stage socially and economically for themselves, for their families, to be able to provide better for their loved ones and the individuals they are financially responsible for. We know that when we are uplifting people on a socioeconomic level, that also helps with crime prevention,” said Kraybill.
Kraybill also expressed that when individuals are supported in this manner, they are given a second opportunity and are no longer treated with the same sense of bias upon learning of their record.
“They can come out of the shadows, and that scarlet letter is removed. And we are welcoming them and embracing them back into society and trying to create a buy-in for them to be part of society, like the rest of us again,” said Kraybill.
At this expungement clinic, interns were tasked with providing refreshments, helping record and log data, and gathering other information. At the next session, they will work more closely with attorneys and gain hands-on experience.
“Most of us are pretty excited about it. Getting that hands-on experience, working with those attorneys hands on its exciting for us. When you’re a go-getter, you’re excited to learn about anything and excited to help out the community too,” said Mokihana Bradford, a Junior at CSUB and student intern.
Part two of the expungement clinic will be held on April 24. To be eligible, individuals must have already participated in the March 19 clinic. The CSUB pre-law program will host its next expungement clinic in the spring. For more information, contact the Political Science office at CSUB at PLSI@csub.edu.
