Mariah and I arrived at juvenile court just before 11 am today. I had a meeting at 9 am so we couldn’t get there earlier. We walked right in to meet with Lizzie who is an attorney working for the Legal Assistance Foundation. Lizzie runs a juvenile expungement help desk at the Court on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 to noon. This service is invaluable as she screens Rap sheets and tell people whether their “offense” is eligible for expungement. She also helps folks to complete the multi-page petition as well as the application for a fee waiver.

Let’s talk about how much it costs in Illinois to expunge a juvenile criminal record – $124. It costs $64 per petition that you file and then $60 per court order for the state police. So if you are expunging more than one arrest or conviction, you need to pay $64 per “offense.” You must file a petition for EACH OFFENSE you want to expunge. So imagine is a young person in Chicago has five juvenile mere arrests (no convictions or perhaps even no petitions filed) on his or her record, it would cost $380 to expunge those arrests ($64 per petition and then a fee of $60 per court order). That is a lot of money for anyone in this economic climate. The $380 are only the fees associated with the actual expungement process. In many cases, lawyers charge up to $1000 to help a young person to expunge their record(s). My advice to anyone is DON’T PAY A LAWYER to do this. It is tedious but you can and should file PRO-SE (do it yourself). Look for the FREE RESOURCES that are available to help you through the process.

After Mariah completed the petition for expungement as well as the application for a fee waiver, Lizzie accompanied us to the Clerk of the Court’s office to submit the petition. If you have the cash, you can pay at the office. If you do not, you should hold on to your application for a fee waiver until your hearing in front of the judge. The young woman at the front desk checked to make sure that all relevant information was included on the petition and on the fee waiver. The Clerk’s office then assigns a hearing date. Initially, they said that Mariah could see a judge in 45 days (that would have been late October). I insisted that she needed an EXPEDITED hearing. They asked why and I told them. She was assigned a hearing date in two weeks – September 30th. It helps to have an advocate with you who knows the system and can push back.

I will update everyone about what happens at the Hearing on September 30th. In the meantime for more information about the Juvenile Expungement process in Illinois as well as a copy of the petition forms, you can click HERE. If you are a resident of Illinois, I encourage you to join our UN-marked Campaign which is an effort to change the juvenile expungement laws and practices in the state.