Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: Becoming an Attorney

Depends on the felony, if it can be expunged, and if she is willing to do legal secretary work or possibly paralegal work.

If you want you are welcome to call me and ask further questions.

JDH

Re: Becoming an Attorney

She won't be eligible to work at any corporate employer ever again, but if she has some legal knowledge maybe she can get work.in a small law office.

Re: Becoming an Attorney

Your daughter needs to worry about becoming a lawyer at all before she focuses on a particular field. Lawyers must prove their moral fitness in order to get a license. A felony conviction will almost always get in the way. The Bar will sometimes agree that an applicant with a felony conviction has been rehabilitated, but this process often takes years.

Many law schools ask applicants about their criminal records and will reject those who seem unlikely to be admitted to practice. Even if your daughter gets in and graduates, the Bar will make up its own mind and may not share the law school's optimism about her character.

Even if she is admitted to the Bar, she will then have to persuade an employer to hire her and/or obtain clients of her own despite her record. That also won't be easy.

Since I don't know what the conviction was for or the surrounding circumstances, I can't say whether your daughter's chances are better or worse than those of other felons. All I can say is she will have a difficult time even starting a legal career.

Depending upon her offense, your daughter may be able to get her felony reduced to a misdemeanor in the future. She may then be able to get the misdemeanor expunged. These steps would *not* eliminate the obstacles I have described, but they would help ease the process a bit.

The only other option I can think of is to challenge her conviction, either by appealing it and/or by seeking a writ of habeas corpus. I have no idea whether either of these options is realistic for her, but if she can get the conviction set aside her life will be much better in ways too numerous to list.