Clean Slate?
You have always wanted to be a pediatrician for as long as you can remember. The time finally comes to get serious about it. You go through undergraduate school and earn your pre-med degree. You then go to medical school before graduating with honors. Next up is your residency. You finally finish with that and about $150,000 in student loans. That is okay because you are ready to sit for your medical license and start practicing.
You send in your application. One day, a notice comes in the mail from the Medical Board. Your application has been rejected. The reason? You have a criminal record showing an assault and battery conviction from when you were in a brawl in high school. As a crime of “moral turpitude,” the Medical Board will not grant you a license.
Great.
There you sit with a medical degree and $150,000 in student loans. What are you going to do now? Oh, I should probably mention that student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. We are talking about the ultimate nightmare.
Criminal Record Check
The above scenario is obviously not common, although it does happen more often than you might think. The reason is running background checks has become a fairly standard procedure these days. Just as it is recommended that you run a credit report on yourself before applying for a mortgage, it is now smart to run a California criminal records check every so often to make sure something hasn’t popped up on your criminal record, whether accurate or not.
Somebody important is going to run a background check on your sooner or later. Don’t you want to know what is on there before they see the information? If you have even a misdemeanor on your record, it could result in the person who ordered the check having a negative impression of you. That is never good since they are checking your records to see if they can trust you or not.
Finding out what is floating around about you in the databases of criminal records accessed in background checks isn’t difficult. We offer a free background check that will cover everything from California criminal records to issues raised in other states. If there is something negative listed, we will find it. Even better, it is important to know that most problems can be fixed as well. The key is to learn about the problem before someone else does.
Juvenile Conundrum
One area where we see people continuously have problems is with their juvenile records. For some reason, there is a belief in Glendale that your juvenile record is automatically sealed when you turn 18. This is simply not true. Your juvenile record is neither sealed nor swept clean. Instead, it becomes a part of your adult criminal record unless you take action to have it sealed or expunged. Few people do, and the results can be a disaster when a third party does a background check. If you stole a car when you were 14, do you really think a bank will hire you? Not a chance.
We Can Help
The key to dealing with a criminal record, whether juvenile or adult, is to take action. If we run a free California criminal records check for you and it turns up something, it is not the end of the world by any stretch of the imagination. Glendale has multiple laws that allow one to seal or expunge their record if it can generally be shown they’ve turned the corner and become a productive member of society. This is truly the state of second chances. As a criminal defense firm, we are versed in handling such matters and getting our clients a second lease on life. We can do the same for you as well if it is needed.
