Think Twice Before Paying an Out-of-State Attorney to Expunge or Seal Your IL Criminal Record
Question
I want to file a petition to expunge/seal my record. Does it matter whether I hire a local v. out-of-state attorney to do my paperwork?
Bullet Points:
Consumers should be skeptical of hiring a firm that offers expungement/sealing services in multiple states.
While there is one set of rules for expungement and sealing in Illinois, on a county-by-county basis, how those rules are interpreted and applied can vary enormously from judge to judge.
A lack of familiarity with the local practices of a particular county will reduce the odds a petition will be granted when the State files an objection to it.
If an out-of-state attorney or law firm offers expungement/sealing services at fees below the local market rate, that should be a red flag.
One individual who used a Texas-based operation, WIPERECORD, to seal his Chicago criminal cases got nothing in return for his money because WIPERECORD failed to list the client's criminal cases on the paperwork, instead listing the cases of a stranger (a man with the same name but a different date of birth).
Why would anyone hire an out-of-state attorney to expunge or seal their criminal record? In recent years, a number of out-of-state businesses have sprung up offering bargain rate expungement/sealing services.
When someone hires an out-of-state practitioner/entity instead of a local attorney, there’s no guarantee that outsider will be familiar with the local practices of the court who’ll rule on the petition.
Any Illinois attorney who regularly practices in this area knows all too well that from one court district to the next (in Cook County) or from one county to the next, the state’s expungement/sealing law is not interpreted or applied the same way from one judge to the next.
A Cautionary Tale
Recently, I was contacted by an individual (whom I’ll refer to as Jim) who hired one of these out-of-state operations to seal his record.
WIPERECORD was a Texas-based company that advertised record clearing services in 15 states. The company was owned by the law firm Eastman Meyler PC.
Today, neither WIPERECORD nor the law firm remain in business. Apparently, poor customer reviews finally caught up with them.
Jim was unaware of the bad reviews when he hired WIPERECORD to help him in 2021. In 2022, WIPERECORD mailed Jim a signed court order, reflecting that four case numbers had been sealed.
In the accompanying cover letter, the law firm’s managing partner told Jim that for an additional $199, WIPERECORD could provide “expedited expungement enforcement services” -- brazenly (and falsely) claiming that the court order could be “enforced” in as little as 48 hours.
Unraveling a Mystery: Whose Cases were on the Court Order?
Jim didn’t discover WIPERECORD had not sealed any of his cases until earlier this year, after undergoing a background check for a job he didn’t get. What had gone wrong? It took some digging to unravel the mystery.
To start with there was no question the court order was genuine. I recognized the judge’s signature on it.
The first hint that something was amiss was when I learned Jim had only Chicago cases. All the numbers listed on the court order were for North Suburban Cook County cases.
WIPERECORD instructed Jim to obtain his FBI criminal background report. Presumably, that document was used to identify his cases. The company did not tell Jim to obtain his Chicago RAP sheet, as it should have.
Why did WIPERECORD fail to list any of Jim’s cases on his paperwork?? Who then belonged to the cases on the court order?? Was this a case of identity theft?
The only way to answer these questions was to look at the court files. It didn’t take long to figure out what happened. It turned out there was another man with the same name as Jim’s but who had a different date of birth.
Inexplicably, no one – not the attorney who filled out the paperwork, the State’s Attorney, the expungement clerk, or the Court – caught the discrepancy in the birth dates.
While I was happy to tell Jim that he had not been a victim of identity theft, I still had to inform him he’d paid WIPERECORD to seal a stranger’s criminal record.
The Moral of Jim’s Story?
Hire local counsel!! Many of these out-of-state operators attract unsuspecting buyers by offering their services at below market rate or by making false promises about how quickly they could get a petition granted or processed.
As the old adage goes: You get what you pay for. In Jim’s case, he got nothing.