Reentry Legal Clinic
What is the Reentry Legal Clinic?
A criminal conviction can lead to various collateral consequences that impede rehabilitation of a formerly-incarcerated individual. These include barriers to employment, housing, family union, health care, and political participation in government, to name a few. We focus on employment barriers to reentry, analyzing their implications; studying political and legal initiatives to lower these barriers; and putting into practice what we learn from our studies.
What services does the Clinic provide?
We offer three broad categories of services: clean slate, Title VII, and occupational license.
Clean Slate
Clean slate refers to various remedies that "clean up" one's criminal records. At the Clinic, law students working under the supervision of volunteer attorneys help community residents with criminal records fill out the required paperwork to dismiss those convictions from their record, as allowed by law.
Title VII
Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination based on a protected category, such as race, as applied to criminal background checks in an employment context. At the Clinic, we screen each participant for a potential Title VII claim, making sure that they meet both the statute of limitations (180 days) and jurisdictional (race-based) requirements. After the Clinic, volunteer attorneys and/or motivated law students conduct further screening interviews to help the particpant determine whether to file a Title VII claim with the EEOC. We also assist him/her in filing the initial complaint.
Occupational License
Experience shows that an informed use of the review procedure outlined in California Business & Professions Code §§ 480, et seq. dramatically increases the chances of obtaining and keeping an occupational license for people with criminal records. We educate our participants of their rights under the existing law and direct them to the appropriate agencies to excercise those rights. If their case has gone beyond our educational scope, then we refer them to Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County for a more in-depth consultation with experienced attorneys.
Where do I learn how to help people at the Clinic?
We will provide an on-site training for our volunteers. Since the training covers a list of different statutes and procedures and can take up to 3 hours altogether, we ask that you register to volunteer at the Clinic.
What is the schedule and location of the Clinic?
The Clinic is held at Watts Labor Community Action Center in South Los Angeles on the second Saturday of each month.
09:00am-09:30am Set-up
09:30am-10:00am Last minute training, announcement, and introduction
10:00am-01:00pm Clinic
- Sign in participants.
- Assign intake volunteer.
- Do participant intake to gather and analyze cases.
- Determine next step or final disposition.
- Assign follow-up volunteer.
01:00pm-02:00pm Case-review How successful is the Clinic?
Exit survey and participant tracking data are available upon request. Please contact joshua@anewwayoflife.org for more information. For the school year 2007-08, we provided direct assistance to the total of 193 participants: 45 in 2007 Clinic, and 148 in 2008, plus a number of individuals to whom we provided training and information.
Even though the existing need in the community far outweighs our resource and capacity, our capacity is growing. In 2009, we are helping 20 to 30 individuals per clinic for a total of 40 to 60 petitions per month on average.
| SERVICE | 2007 | 2008 |
| P.C. §§ 1203.4, 1203.4a, 17(b) | 17 | 83 |
| Certificate of Rehabilitation | 6 | 2 |
| Title VII | 1 | 17 |
| Occupational Licensing | 2 | 9 |
| Other | 2 | 37 |
| TOTAL | 45 | 148 |
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