By Amy Mandin
Do you remember why you wanted to become an attorney? Well, I would like to share a story; it is a beautiful one at that. And I think it may remind some of us why we chose this profession.
A cheerful Seattleite, bursting with energy at 69 years young, recently came to the Records Project hoping to finally put his past behind him. His past reflects many encounters with the criminal legal system, several convictions, all non-violent and tied to a years-long struggle with substance use disorder that dates back to the late 1970s. He has been sober since completing a King County recovery program some 17 years ago. His life, by every measure, has changed completely.
But the law has not yet fully recognized his profound achievement.
“I’m not that guy anymore,” he recently told me during one of our phone calls. He’s the kind of person who makes you pick up the phone instead of sending an email. A jolt of positivity always greets you on the other end. Asked about his journey, and about finally getting the convictions off his record, he enthusiastically told me: “It’s everything.”
He also told me this: his story is a beautiful one; people do change and he is proof. He was weak, picked himself up with help, and never went back. Getting sober was the transformation, and vacating these convictions is the last step. He knows there are many people out there like him, and he hopes they can get help too.
He is right that there are many, many people out there, and Black Washingtonians and other communities of color bear a disproportionate share of that burden. A 2020 study co-authored by Jacob Kuykendall, then Senior Staff Attorney with the Records Project, found that an estimated 1.3 million Washingtonians may be eligible to vacate under existing law, yet fewer than 3% of individuals and less than 1% of eligible cases ever received relief.[1] The study estimates it would take over 4,000 years to clear the backlog of eligible charges at the rate of vacatur at that time.
I started with the question of why we became attorneys. Pro bono work can help us rediscover why. The Records Project provides free direct legal representation to low-income King County residents seeking post-conviction relief through vacatur. Our clients often face too many barriers to list, and they are disproportionately people of color and people experiencing housing instability. For many of them, a vacated conviction is the difference between getting hired and staying unemployed, or between stable housing and a shelter.
Volunteers are the backbone of what we do, but we too have an extensive backlog. Right now, our clients must wait over a year on average to get paired with an attorney. We need help. While we handle training, intake, and screening, our volunteer attorneys show up for the representation that clients cannot do on their own. Most cases are well-defined, all are forms based, and they usually resolve without a hearing. You do not need a background in criminal law to do this work. You need a few hours and a willingness to show up for someone who has been waiting a long time for exactly that.
Amy Mandin is the Records Project Managing Attorney. For more information about the Records Project and how you can volunteer, please contact Amy at amym@kcba.org.
[1] See Colleen Chien, Zuyan Huang, Jacob Kuykendall & Katie Rabago, The Washington State Second Chance Expungement Gap at Summary (Jan. 31, 2020), (finding that fewer than 3% of individuals and less than 1% of charges eligible for vacatur have received relief, and estimating it would take over 4,000 years to clear the backlog at then-current petition rates).
