Expungements: from Hack Week MVP to catalyzing systemic policy change

I co-founded an Expungement Service to make expungements more affordable and accessible in California. I designed a comprehensive, multi-step product to guide users through the complex process of getting a criminal record expunged.

Impact

• Co-wrote two grants that raised $750,000 in funding from Schmidt Futures and Indeed to sponsor expungements at no cost to the candidate

• 25% conversion rate for expungements, a 19.5% increase from the existing system. In the first year after launching

• Filed 1,070 candidates’ expungement petitions. 

Design to policy evolution

In 2022, our expungement service helped influence California's Clean Slate initiative (SB 731), which now automatically clears eligible records for free.

While our service is no longer needed in California, we view this as the ultimate success, helping prove that expungements should be automatic and free and contributing to a solution that helps millions rather than thousands.

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. In 2020, 30 million Americans qualify for a partial or full clearing of their record. Despite progressive laws, less than 10% pursued 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 worked:

1. 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.

2. Qualify. Job-seekers fill out a brief questionnaire to confirm if their record qualifies for an expedited expungement through our service.

3. Pay. If they qualify, they may choose to pay for the legal and court processing fees to file their expungement petition. Before our service existed, 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 reduced the cost to $350, which goes entirely to covering the petition filing fee and legal services. 

4. 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. 

5. See Results. Checkr emails job-seekers when their expungement is complete and when their conviction should no longer be a barrier.

The solution expunged 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.

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. 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. 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. 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 allowed 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. 

PRODUCT IMPACT

In the first year after launching our full service, we filed 1,070 candidates’ petitions.

In 2021, I co-wrote two grants that raised $750,000 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 prior system.

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. 

A victory for systemic change

In 2022, California implemented its Clean Slate initiative (SB 731), automatically clearing eligible criminal records without requiring individuals to navigate complex legal processes or pay fees.

Why our service sunset: The very barriers our service addressed (complex paperwork, legal fees, lack of awareness) have been eliminated at the systemic level for millions of Californians.

While our service is no longer needed in California, we view this as the ultimate success—we helped prove that expungements should be automatic and free. Our work represents a moment when technology and advocacy converged to address injustice and catalyze systemic reform.