In the past decade, Amber Floyd remembers people shrugging off court expungement needs here. She shook her head. She’s a lawyer. She knew what she had seen in other Tennessee counties.

Then in late 2016, the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law offered its first expungement clinic. Floyd was in charge. The line was out the door.

“Over 1,000 people showed up. I think that was the first time that people sat back and took note,” she said.

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Floyd was at the podium Wednesday, Sept. 13, in a press conference at the law school, announcing the university’s commitment to its new expungement and rights restoration clinic.

Staffed with law students working under her, the clinic now gives 24 hours of pro bono work per week to people who need help lawfully clearing their court records of arrests and other details that limit their access to better-paying jobs and promotions.

“We can handle any cases filed in general sessions and criminal court in Shelby County for people eligible for conviction expungement,” Floyd says. “Or a person may need to have a diversion case expunged because they have successfully completed their program requirement. Those cases do not automatically clear.”

Not all cases are eligible, including domestic abuse, child abuse and some felonies.

Many of the cases Memphis Area Legal Services sees have to do with long-ago drug violations and moving violations.

Experts have no idea how many people have records in Shelby County that could be expunged.

“That’s the first question anyone asks,” says Josh Spickler, head of Just City here, a nonprofit working in criminal justice reform.

“We have a good guess that it’s a lot of people and maybe we could put it within a couple 100,000 or something. It’s a lot,” he said.

Floyd is working off court reports that show 100,000 cases are filed every year in the county’s general sessions court.

“That speaks to the volume of cases,” she said. “If you even do half of 100,000, that’s a lot of cases.”

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Every year, thousands of cases are dropped or dismissed. But the details of the arrests and charges stay in individual court records unless reports are filed to specifically remove them.

The consequences are shattering for people who may also have lost their right to vote and had their driver’s licenses revoked.

The students in the clinic are being trained to take on all the issues, including petitioning to waive court costs, which in some cases, Spickler says, can easily exceed tens of thousands of dollars.

“The trick is they charge you for every day you are in jail. And we know how slowly the system moves sometimes. And if you’re stuck in the Shelby County jail for three years, you’re going to leave there with many tens of thousands of dollars in jail fees alone,” he said.

Driver’s licenses and voting rights cannot be restored until court costs are paid.

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“In a city that has a great poverty rate like ours does, that means many, many people can never unlock it. And there’s not enough money in the U.S. Treasury to unlock it for everyone,” Spickler said.

The people who bear the heaviest weight of the criminal justice system, Spickler says, are those who have been accused.

“Whether it results in a conviction or not, that record can go with you to your grave unless you proactively get it expunged, if you’re eligible to do that. Many, many people are not.

“It’s a drag on employment opportunities, a drag on housing opportunity. It can be a drag on your civic rights, such as the right to vote, the right to serve as executor on a relative’s will, and of course, your right to run for office. The need is massive,” he said.

The clinic is working with Memphis Area Legal Services, taking clients who fit its income eligibility bracket, and as a result, hoping to alleviate the backlog of dire cases, said Cindy Ettinghoff, CEO and general counsel.

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“In all likelihood, the correlation is that their income is lower because the need for expungement limits their job or opportunities. It’s kind of marrying those most likely to need the help and who would otherwise be unable to pay.”

Ettinghoff expects the U of M clinic will take 20-25% of Memphis Area Legal Services’ caseload, reducing the number of people who are unemployed or working low-wage jobs because their records keep them from achieving more.

Legal Services uses a network of lawyers who volunteer their time to help with expungements.

“There’s actually a low number of attorneys that are equipped to handle the issues, which is the problem I’ve run into in the re-entry and expungement realm,” said Heather Skaggs, managing attorney in charge of its pro bono programs.

“I have so many people that have been waiting. My oldest case has probably been waiting since 2021 just to have something expunged.”

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The university started working on the project a year ago, including sizing the clinic to meet university budgets, building a course curriculum and determining student interest. It ultimately chose to limit the opening semester to four students in their final year of law school. Each had to apply.

It also hired Floyd, general counsel for the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority, to lead the work as a part-time law professor. She teaches the law school’s new course in expungement and rights recovery one night a week.

Floyd, outside her daily work for the Airport Authority, has done some of the most comprehensive work in court expungements in the state.

In the past decade, she’s led clinics here and in the surrounding region that led to thousands of expungements in Shelby County alone, said Daniel M. Schaffzin, associate professor and director of experiential learning at the U of M law school.

“Professor Floyd is recognized by consensus as the leading advocate and trainer in Tennessee on expungement and restoration of rights matters. For more than a decade, Professor Floyd has been at the forefront of building a community of practice and a coalition of practitioners devoted to this work,” he said.

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In 2022, Floyd received the Memphis Bar Association’s Sam A. Myar Jr. award and W.J. Michael Cody Access to Justice Award, both in recognition of her longtime commitment to expungement and restoration of rights.

She is also a past recipient of the Janice M. Holder Access to Justice Award given by the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services for her work to increase access to justice.

Student Micah Traylor applied after working in a legal clinic last spring as part of the law school’s alternate spring break, which is essentially a week of pro bono legal work overseen by lawyers and law professors.

She loved the expungement work.

“It opened my eyes to the great need,” Traylor said.

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She then applied for the new course and clinic.

“It has been one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done in law school. Hands down, this clinic has really ignited the fire as far as my passion for being a public servant.”

The law school is watching to see the progress and gauging how fast it may be able to scale up.

“Right now, we have 12 files spanning the whole gamut — expungement, voter restoration, driver’s license restoration. In every file, we are looking for those components,” Floyd said. “Do they need help in these spaces? If they do, we work up the file accordingly.”