RALEIGH — Campbell Law School announced today it will host the inaugural Bob and Pat Barker Second Chance Expunction Clinic on Saturday, March 13, in Pitt County.
Campbell Law School’s Blanchard Community Law Clinic is leading the effort in collaboration with the law school’s Pro Bono Re-Entry Project (under Professor Bobbi Boyd’s supervision), the North Carolina Justice Center, North Carolina Central School of Law, N.C. Reentry Innovators for Success Inc. (a Pitt County non-profit), Cornerstone Baptist Church in Greenville, the Pitt County District Attorney’s Office, the Pitt County Clerk of Court and Pitt County District and Superior Court Judges.
Students will be meeting with clients via Zoom from the Blanchard Community Law Clinic or from other remote locations. Professor Tolu Adewale, NCCU Professor Dionne Gonder and other volunteer lawyers from the N.C. Justice Cener will be in the Zoom universe supervising the students. Professor Emily Mistr, law students Grace Glover and Sherilyn Knox and Founding Clinic Director and Professor Ashley Campbell will be physically located in Pitt County to administer the clinic where 46 clients plan to be served.
“We anticipate that more than 200 expunction petitions will be filed,” Campbell explained. “We are excited to be participating in a remote clinic and hope that it will serve as a model for future clinics during COVID and beyond as a way of reaching clients throughout the State as efficiently and inexpensively as possible.”
Founded in 2016, The Blanchard Community Law Clinic helps citizens move forward with their lives following incarceration and involvement with the criminal justice system. The clinic partners with Triangle area community nonprofits including Alliance Medical Ministry, StepUp Ministry, the Raleigh Rescue Mission, Urban Ministries, Justice Served, Community Success Initiative and many more to provide free legal services to low-income individuals. Pro bono criminal record expunction efforts have been a mainstay of the clinic, which has helped more than 700 individuals since it began. To learn more about the Blanchard Community Law Clinic and its services, visit this link.
ABOUT CAMPBELL LAW
Since its founding in 1976, Campbell Law has developed lawyers who possess moral conviction, social compassion, and professional competence, and who view the law as a calling to serve others. Among its accolades, the school has been recognized by the American Bar Association (ABA) as having the nation’s top Professionalism Program and by the American Academy of Trial Lawyers for having the nation’s best Trial Advocacy Program. Campbell Law boasts more than 4,200 alumni, who make their home in nearly all 50 states and beyond. In 2021, Campbell Law is celebrating 45 years of graduating legal leaders and a dozen years of being located in a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of North Carolina’s Capital City.
ABOUT N.C. JUSTICE CENTER
The mission of the North Carolina Justice Center is to eliminate poverty in North Carolina by ensuring that every household in the state has access to the resources, services, and fair treatment it needs to achieve economic security. Learn more at https://www.ncjustice.org