Record Clearance Project

Please help the SJSU Record Clearance Project continue its award-winning work providing free legal help to those who are moving forward with their lives and seek to put past mistakes behind them.   

The pandemic and its economic fall-out have put the Record Clearance Project in a precarious financial situation until committed funding comes through in January 2021.  As we transition to on-line services, we need our experienced staff to provide for clients and train new students to ensure continued operations.      

How can you help make a difference?  Your donation to the Record Clearance Project will: 

• Provide legal assistance for clients - 72% of whom are people of color - who can't afford to hire a lawyer, thereby increasing access to jobs, housing, immigration, and other opportunities. 
•  Give first-generation college-goers - 87% of whom are people of color - the chance to do legal work that changes lives, thereby learning how to use the law to help make the world a better place.
• Take a step toward healing some of the harm that has been done to those people, families and communities that have been disproportionately impacted by a racially and ethnically biased criminal justice system.

Please invest in a more humane world and brighter futures for the thousands of lives touched by the personal connections and broader visions fostered through this work.  Donate to the SJSU Record Clearance Project today!    

And with your donation, add a comment and forward to friends.  Thank you!  

Thank you … for your noble work, for looking inside the person not at just their actions, for standing up when nobody else had, and most of all, thank you for holding on to such strong principles and ethics.  There is a special place in heaven for those that lift up the hardest to reach.      - Mother of former Record Clearance Project client     

Visit our website to learn more about the Record Clearance Project.

The Record Clearance Project provides:

• Presentations on how to clear past convictions and the employment rights of people with records
• LiveScan fingerprinting so people can get a copy of their criminal history report ("RAP sheet") [re-starting soon, with social distancing]
• “Speed Screening” interviews to review people's RAP sheets and outline their next steps in clearing their record
• Representation in court on petitions to dismiss convictions and reduce felonies to misdemeanors in Santa Clara County
• Peer mentoring by former clients to help people transition from custody to prepare for their new futures 
• Three-unit class on Practical Legal Skills to in-custody students for SJSU credit [in process to set up on-line teaching, given jail closure]