Expungements
30 million Americans qualify for expungement relief. However, only 6.5% pursue relief due to the complex legal process, expensive lawyer fees, and lack of awareness of eligibility.
I designed an Expungement Service on a vision to make expungements more affordable and accessible. I led a Hack Week team in both 2020 to build our Expungement Service, and a team in 2021 to expand our offerings. In 2020, we placed first in the Hack Week out of seventeen teams. I wrote about our process and how we closed the gap from a Hack Week project to a production-ready MVP.
To make expungements more affordable, I started looking and applying for grants. In 2021, I co-wrote two grants that raised $500,000 in funding from Schmidt Futures and Indeed. This grant money is used to sponsor expungements at no cost to the candidate. We now have a 25% conversion rate for these sponsored expungements, a 19.5% increase from the current system. In the first year after launching our full service, we filed 1,070 candidates’ expungement petitions.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Co-founder. I co-founded Checkr’s Expungement service and served as the Product lead.
Lead designer. I researched existing problems with expungements and designed the service to address those problems.
UX writer. I created the content for the emails, SMS messages, and product flow.
Grant writer. I co-wrote two grants that resulted in $500,000 of funding for Schmidt Futures and Indeed. This grant money is used to sponsor expungements at no cost to the candidate.
What is an expungement?
An expungement is a partial or full clearing of a criminal record. Expungements result in either a dismissal or a complete sealing of the charge from public record, which prevents employers from seeing and denying people jobs based on that charge.
The problem
70 million Americans have a criminal record. That is 1 in three adults. States are recognizing the barriers people with records face in getting employment, housing, and licensing. As a result, expungement legislation is sweeping the nation. 30 million Americans now qualify for a partial or full clearing of their record. Despite these progressive laws, less than 10% pursue relief due to the legal process, expensive lawyer fees, and lack of awareness.
My design solution
I saw this disparity first-hand in my work at Checkr, a company that has run 80+ million background checks for customers like Uber, Lyft, and Amazon. In response, I co-founded and designed Checkr’s Expungement Service. Here’s how it works:
Educate. Job-seekers who have gotten a background check done are proactively alerted of their potential eligibility for expungement relief through email, SMS text, and in-context on their background check.
Qualify. Job-seekers fill out a brief questionnaire to confirm if their record qualifies for an expedited expungement through our service.
Pay. If they qualify, they may choose to pay for the legal and processing fees required to file their expungement petition. Before our service existed, most people would hire a lawyer, which costs ~$2,200 on average. Partnering with Avenues Legal LLP, a company that offers automated legal document workflow solutions, we’ve been able to reduce the cost to as low as $350, which goes entirely to covering the state’s petition filing fee and legal services.
File Petition. Working with Avenues Legal LLP, we create and file the job-seekers’ petition to the court and communicate results with the job-seekers. The process generally takes 3-5 weeks, depending on the court.
See Results. Checkr emails job-seekers when their expungement is complete and when their conviction should no longer be a barrier.
The current solution expunges Prop 64 marijuana misdemeanors and offers felony reductions for Proposition 47 charges in California.
Wireframes
Candidate journey
Customer journey
Like job seekers, employers often find it difficult to know which records qualify for expungement. To educate customers on potentially expungeable charges and pending expungements, I designed in-context education that appears on the background check. This guidance helps customers avoid dismissing qualified candidates.
Hi-fidelity designs
I iterated on our wireframes and created hi-fidelity designs that provide education about expungement relief, clearly explain the process, and set expectations at each step of the way.
THE EVOLUTION
Manual pilot
In the fall of 2019, our Candidate Experience team launched a manual pilot that expunged 124 peoples’ records. The manual nature made it difficult to maintain, but the pilot built a successful partnership with our legal vendor, Avenues Legal.
Hack Week 2020
In January 2020, Checkr had a dedicated Hack Week to explore building new solutions. I formed a team of 11 people to build an automated expungement service.
Our goal was to reduce the manual work from both our support teams and the job seeker. We wanted to educate job seekers and customers about eligible charges and give people the opportunity to expunge their record.
Out of 17 teams, our expungement service won the Hack Week competition. I wrote about our process and closing the gap from Hack Week project to production-ready MVP.
Closing the gap to launch MVP
I designed a service blueprint to see the interactions between the candidate, customer, and Checkr. In researching the expungement space, I found that there’s a real need for our service in the market. Over 9 months, I led our team in launching the MVP of our expungement service.
Expanding during hack week 2021
Prior to January 2021, Checkr's expungement service was only available to Checkr candidates (people who applied to a job that uses Checkr as their background check provider). This limited our volume and scale of impact. During Hack Week 2021, I pitched that we should expand the scope of our service to include all qualified individuals.
I designed the landing page experience and flow to provide Expungements on our marketing page. This allows anyone to take a free background check, see their results, and get notified if they have an expungeable record.
I also designed opportunities for expungement sponsorships via discount codes to take the financial burden off individuals with records and activate our customers to sponsor expungements.
THE IMPACT
In the first year after launching our full service, we filed 1,070 candidates’ petitions.
Our subsidized cost is still too much for the people who need it. Our ultimate goal is to make our Expungement service free for everyone.
To make expungements more affordable, I started looking and applying for grants. In 2021, I co-wrote two grants that raised $500,000 in funding from Schmidt Futures and Indeed. This grant money is used to sponsor expungements at no cost to the candidate. We now have a 25% conversion rate for these sponsored expungements, a 19.5% increase from the current system.
What’s next?
Through Expungements, I learned how much design can build and ground a vision that motivates a team. Despite seeing successes in the initial pilot, it took visualizing the Expungement Service to turn this idea into a reality. It inspired me that designers can be great leaders.
I’m excited to continue expanding and scaling our service, starting with:
Maximizing impact in Bay Area, where Checkr has its initial headquarters
Scaling to Denver, CO, where Checkr’s second headquarters is located
Sharing impact results and costs to encourage companies to sponsor other cities and counties to lower their petition filing costs and friction