Do I Need an Attorney to Expunge/Seal my Criminal Record in Florida?

UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021

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UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021Fact Checked

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Jeffrey Johnson

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Jeffrey Johnson is a legal writer with a focus on personal injury. He has worked on personal injury and sovereign immunity litigation in addition to experience in family, estate, and criminal law. He earned a J.D. from the University of Baltimore and has worked in legal offices and non-profits in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. He has also earned an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman Univer...

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UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021

Advertiser Disclosure

It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right legal decisions.

We strive to help you make confident insurance and legal decisions. Finding trusted and reliable insurance quotes and legal advice should be easy. This doesn’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own.

Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about legal topics and insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything legal and insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by experts.

UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021

Advertiser Disclosure

It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right legal decisions.

We strive to help you make confident insurance and legal decisions. Finding trusted and reliable insurance quotes and legal advice should be easy. This doesn’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own.

UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021Fact Checked

Getting your criminal history record expunged or sealed in Florida is a complex and involved process, no matter the type of record. The criminal history of an individual becomes an important factor in determining his or her eligibility for hiring, promotions, etc, depending on the job and who the employer may be (private, public, institutions, schools, government, etc).

You will want to pursue the services of a criminal law attorney in Florida to determine your rights and options in a record sealing or expunction matter in any of the following circumstances:

  1. You have any prior convictions of any kind. The laws in Florida around exceptions to eligibility for expunction or sealing of criminal records are many and varied. For instance, your record is not eligible for expunction if you have been found guilty of any criminal activity “stemming from” your original arrest. This information and other exceptions are discussed in more detail in the sections entitled Eligibility for Expunging Adult Criminal Records in Florida, and Process for Expunging Adult Criminal Records in Florida. If you have had other run-ins with the law and cannot very precisely determine what acts stemmed from the original arrest and what acts may not have, then you could be wasting a lot of your time and money applying in the first place without an attorney to look over the details as they’re described in the statute.
  2. You think an automatic expunction or sealing should have occurred on your record but you are not sure if or when this occurred. Finding out which of your prior charges may have been automatically erased from the record after a certain time period, such as some juvenile offenses, is very time-consuming and also very necessary. You cannot risk converting one or more these automatic court sealings into requested court sealings. If you do, you in effect put another expunction/sealing request on the court books. Doing so will invalidate the specific criminal history expunction request you are seeking right now! If you are applying for a job or otherwise just trying to clear your record of the most visible and consequential records, you want an attorney to make sure the job is done correctly. If there is a miscue, you could lose the right to try again!
  3. You want to have an expert to rely on and hold accountable during this process. The attorney who is an expert in the field can see you through an often overwhelming legal process and court procedures that are necessary to achieve your desired outcome.

For more articles on Florida expunctions, click on the following:

Overview of Florida Criminal Record Expunctions

Eligibility for Expunging Adult Criminal Records in Florida

Sealing of Adult Criminal Records in Florida

Process for Sealing Adult Criminal Records in Florida

Sealing Juvenile Criminal Records in Florida

Process for Sealing Juvenile Criminal Records in Florida

Process for Expunging Adult Criminal Records in Florida

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Jeffrey Johnson

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Jeffrey Johnson is a legal writer with a focus on personal injury. He has worked on personal injury and sovereign immunity litigation in addition to experience in family, estate, and criminal law. He earned a J.D. from the University of Baltimore and has worked in legal offices and non-profits in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. He has also earned an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman Univer...

Insurance Lawyer

Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about legal topics and insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything legal and insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by experts.

Get Legal Help Today

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