At KC Digital Drive, we’re driven by the mission to use technology to make a tangible impact on the lives of individuals and communities in our region. We’re pleased to announce that the Kansas Supreme Court has awarded KC Digital Drive with an Access to Justice Grant to fund the expansion of our Clear My Record – KS project, an ambitious initiative designed to make access to legal assistance easier for justice-affected individuals and pro bono attorneys across Kansas.
Expanding the Scope of Clear My Record – KS
The Clear My Record project has developed a web-based application that allows a person with a criminal conviction to determine if the crime is eligible for expungement and complete an application they can file with the court. This tool has been deployed at 29 expungement clinics across the state in partnership with Kansas Legal Services, and has been used to generate almost 1,300 expungement applications to date.
Building on the success of our Kansas expungement tool, Clear My Record – KS aims to use this grant to broaden access to legal assistance for underserved Kansans. Through innovative tools and platforms, this initiative will simplify complex legal processes, making it easier for individuals to navigate challenges like expungement, guardianship, and conservatorship.
Key Commitments
The funding provided by the Access to Justice Grant will allow us to expand our successful expungement assistance platform and develop new digital tools to help Kansans navigate the legal system. Specifically, the grant will support three key initiatives:
- Expungement Assistance:
- Deploy the expungement tool at self-help centers across Kansas to make it accessible to more people.
- Enhance the tool to handle multiple applications and provide more user-friendly assistance features.
- Continue to support Kansas Legal Services (KLS) expungement clinics, serving at least 250 individuals and processing 500 cases in 2024.
- Guardianship & Conservatorship Tool:
- Develop a new guided interview tool to assist with guardianship and conservatorship applications.
- Test the tool in collaboration with KLS and the Douglas County Self-Help Center.
- Explore future modules for other legal needs, such as eviction and name changes, with a goal to serve 50–150 individuals in the first year.
- Platform Integration:
- Lay the groundwork for a centralized legal platform that integrates expungement, guardianship, and other future tools.
- Create seamless workflows for pro se litigants and pro bono attorneys, fostering efficient and impactful legal assistance.
Progress and Next Steps
Our team is currently focused on several critical milestones:
- Identifying and onboarding 2–4 self-help centers in Kansas for the initial rollout of the expungement tool.
- Enhancing the user interface and features of our tools to meet the unique needs of self-help centers and legal clinics.
- Launching the development of the guardianship and conservatorship tool, with iterative testing beginning in mid-2025.
The Impact We Aim to Achieve
By simplifying complex legal processes and making these tools more widely available, Clear My Record – KS is poised to:
- Reduce barriers to justice for underserved populations.
- Enable pro bono attorneys to assist more individuals with greater efficiency.
- Provide a scalable framework for legal self-help that can expand statewide.
Stay Tuned
We’re excited to embark on this transformative journey and look forward to sharing updates as Clear My Record – KS unfolds. Follow KC Digital Drive for progress reports, success stories, and ways you can support this initiative.
Together, we can ensure that access to justice is a reality for all Kansans.