Blanch & Hart provides a free consultation to determine if you are eligible to have your charges expunged. The process of having your records fully expunged can take at as much as one year from the time you hire an attorney. So, don’t wait until you need a clean record to get a job, only to find out that it is too late to do anything about it.
If you have been charged with a criminal offense, public records exist at the courthouse and on the internet that can negatively affect your ability to obtain employment, security clearances, housing, education, and credit. If you were fingerprinted, there will also be a federal criminal record that will indicate that you have been arrested. And, the longer those records exist, the more likely they are to appear in the records of credit reporting agencies and other marketers of personal information. If you were convicted of your charge, then it is impossible under Virginia law to have those records removed. However, Virginia law provides that you may have the police and court records of your charge expunged if you have been charged with a crime and:
- You were found not guilty at trial;
- The prosecutor dropped the charges (Nolle Prosequi);
- The court dismissed your case;
- You won an appeal; or
- You were pardoned by the Governor.