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Expungement Clinic featured in Business First

On March 22, 2019, Louisville Business First published an article about the Reily Reentry Project Expungement Clinic held earlier in the month. “Louisville attorneys are pitching in to help accelerate expungement process” by Steve Kaufman, discussed the difficulties faced by people with records that hold them back in life, even if the charges were dropped or are decades old.

The article highlighted the effort made by the Louisville Urban League in organizing the clinic, as well as the donation of time and expertise from local law firms including Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs. Tad Myre, a partner at Wyatt and expungement clinic volunteer, was quoted numerous times regarding the sheer number of people who benefit from clinics such as this one. People who had 30- or 40-year-old crimes on their records and hadn’t done anything wrong since are still being haunted by those charges, he said. Helping people to clear their records after they’ve served the time or the charges were dropped is good for the community, too. Myre said Louisville has thousands of unfilled jobs that this population should be able to help fill.

He encourages employers to give a second look at applications belonging to those who answer affirmatively to the question “Have you ever been charged with a felony?” If the charges are dropped, it’s still on the person’s record and makes a more difficult time finding a job and housing. If the only charges on a person’s record are 30 years old, they still present a roadblock to better job opportunities.

The full article, which is published as subscriber-accessible content on Louisville Business First’s website, can be found here.