How we research and what “last verified” means.

Source priority

1. State legislative websites (primary source). Statute text as enacted, with last-amended dates.
2. State criminal-history repository sites (operational source). The actual processes the state runs for sealing, with their own form names and fees.
3. State court website (procedural source). Form names, filing fees, court venue.
4. Justia, Cornell LII, NOLO (supplementary, not primary). Useful for orientation but not authoritative for citation.

What “last verified” means today

Each state page shows a last verified date. At launch, that date marks when the editorial team last reviewed the listed statute, fee, and venue against publicly-accessible state legislative and court sources. It is a research-stage verification — not a primary-source-paste-through claim and not (yet) attorney-reviewed.

When the attorney advisor partnership is in place, each state page will also show an attorney verified date — the most recent time a licensed expungement attorney signed off on the eligibility logic for that state. This will be a separate flag, layered on top of editorial verification, not a replacement for it.

Until then, the data carries a research verification status. That's an honest label — it tells you we've sourced the data and reviewed it, but the final professional sign-off has not happened yet. We'd rather you know that than imply a stronger claim than we can support.

Quiz logic

The quiz has four inputs (state, offense category, years since completion, supervision status). For each 51 state, we encode:

• The regime (automatic Clean Slate vs. petition required)
• The default wait period for each offense category, by state
• The exclusion list (categories that do not qualify, marked as null in the data layer)
• The supervision-status interaction (still-on-supervision freezes the clock regardless of years)

The output is one of four result kinds (auto, petition, wait, excluded), each with a statute citation. The citation is the same citation shown on the state page — they're sourced from one canonical data file, never duplicated or paraphrased.

What we never do

• Invent statute citations. If a citation isn't in our research, the page leaves the field blank rather than guess. Every citation shown carries a primary-source URL we've verified.
• Fabricate a reviewer. The attorney advisor block on the about page reads as a placeholder until a real attorney is contracted. No invented “legal review board.”
• Log identifying quiz inputs. Aggregate state and outcome counts only. The audience here is sensitive to surveillance; we treat that as a hard design constraint.
• Imply legal advice. We're an information hub. The disclaimers across the site, on every result card, and in the footer reflect that consistently.

Update cadence

We re-verify state eligibility data on a rolling schedule, with high-traffic states (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan) re-checked monthly and lower-traffic states quarterly. The last-verified date on each state page is the source of truth for when that state was most recently reviewed.

Major statute changes — new Clean Slate laws, fee increases, procedural amendments — get out-of-cycle review when reported. Spot a discrepancy? Email [email protected] and we'll re-verify and update.

Honest caveats

• State laws change. The data is research-current as of the per-state verification date, not real-time.
• Specific facts can move a case across the eligibility line in either direction — the quiz is a starting point, not a final answer.
• We are not a law firm. Use this as orientation; consult a licensed attorney before acting.

2026-05-04 statute-verification pass — what changed

On 2026-05-04 we ran a statute-verification pass against state- legislature primary sources for all 51 entries. Material findings:

• Washington reclassified from automatic Clean Slate to petition. RCW 9.94A.640 is petition-based vacation, not automatic; Washington has no general automatic-sealing-of- convictions statute as of May 2026. The Clean Slate count is now 12 (not 13).
• Delaware citation corrected from § 4374 (discretionary) to § 4373A (the automatic provision).
• New Jerseynow dual-cites § 2C:52-5.4 (automated) alongside § 2C:52-5.3 (petition). The Clean Slate Act's automated mechanism is at 5.4.
• Montana citation corrected from § 46-18-1101 (repealed) to § 46-18-1104.
• North Dakota framework reference updated from § 12.1-32-07.2 (sealing-effect rule) to Chapter 12-60.1 (the actual petition framework, HB1246 of 2019).

Each state page now carries a primary-source URL on its statute citation. Where the primary state legislature site was unreachable during verification, we cite the official mirror (Justia or findlaw codes) and flag confidence as “best-effort” in the verification log at .ops/research/statute-verification/.

2026-05-04 AIO audit — proxy run

On 2026-05-04 we ran a 30-query AI Overview audit using the search-tool proxy. Honest caveat: the proxy returns synthesized answers + citations, not a real Google SERP, so we cannot directly measure AIO presence — only synthesized-answer fullness as a directional proxy. Findings:

• Synthesized-full-answer rate: 23/30 (~77%). Pure informational queries (e.g. “how long does expungement take”, “does sealed record show on background check”) are fully answered by the synthesis.
• Conditional / personalized queries (~7-10 of 30): partial synthesis nudges the user toward professional follow-up. These are where the eligibility-quiz wedge plausibly survives.
• .gov + advocacy authority dominance: ~21/30 queries return state .gov, AG, court system, or major nonprofit in the top 3. This is the source pool AI Overview pulls from.

What we will not claim: that we “measured AIO presence at X%.” We didn't. The synthesized-fullness proxy is a directional signal. A real Google SERP audit (logged-out, US IP) is the next operator action — the 30-query list is sized to be doable manually in 30-45 minutes. Raw data: .ops/research/aio-audit/.