A person can potentially expunge their record without a lawyer in Pennsylvania. If a person can competently go through the process and wants to go through the process on his or her own, it would be at their discretion to do so. Because when people have a criminal record, often it is impacting them in various ways, such as their ability to get employment or better employment or to advance in their career or with respect to their profession or to go to school, be at college or graduate school, whatever the case may be.
A lot is at stake. It is a process, it's a month-long process from start to finish, there are multiple procedural steps involved in the process and expungements can be nuanced in the sense of what needs to be done and what needs to take place for an expungement to be successful.
The question you have to ask yourself is something at stake? If something is at stake, then you should have an attorney involved. An experienced Pennsylvania criminal defense attorney will help you understand both your eligibility requirements and they'll also be able to, in most instances, handle the expungement process for you from start to finish without you having to lift a finger. There's certain benefits in not only having the oversight, that the process is being done properly, but that you would be able to sit back in large part and allow your attorney to handle the process.
