Cannabis Expungement Setup

This page outlines how to setup LegalServer for the New Leaf Cannabis Expungement project in Illinois.

This takes advantage of two modules in LegalServer, Charges and Services. Both of these modules should be available on all sites. If not, please file a ticket with LegalServer to enable them.

As outlined below, charges tracks the past charges/convictions for the client, while Services tracks the expungement attempts and their outcomes. This allows for multiple charges being handled with one expungement attempt, or multiple results on multiple expungement attempts without opening separate full LegalServer intakes (although you could always do that too). 

Setup

Modify the following lookups

• Charge
  • Misdemeanor Non-conviction (Category 1)
  • Felony Non-conviction (Category 1)
  • Misdemeanor Conviction
  • Felony Conviction <30 Grams
  • Felony Conviction >30 Grams
• Phase Decision
  • Granted in Full (Vacated & Expunged)
  • Granted in Part
  • Denied (Statutory)
  • Denied (Discretionary)
  • Pending [Optional]
• Service Type
  • Cannabis Expungement
• Charge Outcome (not actually used on this buildout, but this is a related system field for Charges)
  • Conviction
  • Non-Conviction

Any other lookups can use your existing lookup values. The funder does not have any specific requirements for those fields (race, gender, etc.).

Note that the above modifications only require the value/name of the records to be set, and the values left as Active. Any additional fields on those lookups is optional.

Create the following custom fields

County of Cannabis Conviction on the Charge Module

Alternatively, you can use the County of Dispute field if you are only recording one charge per case. If you are recording multiple charges from multiple jurisdictions on the same LegalServer case, this custom field would be more accurate.                                                                       

Other Criminal Convictions? (on the Case Module)                                                                

Build Out the Forms

Services

Start with the Services Module and specifically, the Profile on the Services Module. The Profile should look like this when you are done. 

No custom configurations need to be done to these fields. 

Then turn to the Service Module Forms. Create a new Phase Create Form named "Add Cannabis Expungement". The required fields are: 

This does require some configuration though:

• Phase/Service Type is a system field and may be named just "Service Type" on your site. Set this to default to "Cannabis Expungement" and hidden.
• Active should default to True and be hidden.
• Title should default to Expungement Attempt.
• Decision should default to Pending if you plan to record the attempt before it is final. If you are using Services for multiple types of projects, then you can use the Generic Lookup Selector Block instead of the Decision field. If so, select the new Phase Decision values added above.

Create a Phase Create Process for the new form unless you've already done so when creating the form. Be sure to link it to the existing Cannabis Expungement Profile at the bottom of the Process. 

Create a similar Form and Process for editing the service record. Alternatively, you can reuse the same form and create an "Edit Cannabis Expungement" Process (this requires you going back to the form and marking it as both a Phase Aux and a Phase Create form under "Name and Description").

TIP: when creating the Phase Aux process, mark it as Complete and Active, and change any other booleans to false. 

Bonus: Go back to the Cannabis Expungement Profile, and add the Edit process as Action or Side Bar items using a Custom Link Box.

Charges

2022 Update -- One option would be instead of building out all of the Charge forms, to simply use the Enhanced Charges block. That will allow you to create the charge and utilize the custom field without much additional buildout. If you do this, you can skip the rest of the charges section. 

Original 2020 Process:

Again in the Process, Forms, and Profiles, switch to Charges. Then start with the Profile. You want a "Cannabis Charge" that looks like

With the Single Charge, these are not the default settings, so be sure to make the changes to match the above example. 

Then turn to the Charge Create Form and generate something similar without the Related case Field

Like with Services, this needs a Create process linked to the previously created Profile. 

Case/Matter

Return to the Case-Matter Module for the last steps.

Start with creating two Branch Logic forms that will go behind Toggle buttons. The first is to Add a Cannabis Charge (mark Active with no Continue Button):

Then add a similar form for the Expungement Attempt:

Then we're going to create two Auxiliary Forms that will be in the same process in the end. The first form is for Charges. Both of these can have Continue Buttons. 

There are no configuration options in the Charges Listview to worry about. 

The second auxiliary form is for tracking the expungement. 

The Services Listview needs to be modified in multiple ways. 

• The enabled columns should be "Title", "Decision", and "Edit"
• Default Filters should be Enabled and the Service Type of "Cannabis Expungement" needs to be selected.

Alternatively, this can be replaced by a Report Part that shows more of the relevant data. See the Sample Reports for an example. 

These two Auxiliary forms should be combined into a single process with the Charges going first and added to the Case Profile Menu Boxes as the final step. 

The reports also call for certain additional fields that can be added to either form or an additional form as desired:

• Referral Source (How did applicant hear about SITE?)
• Zip Code (of Primary Home Address)
• Age
• Gender
• Race
• Level of Service
• Other Criminal Convictions (a custom field to capture the Other Criminal Records) 
• Other Related Convictions  (to capture the Other Cannabis Records)

An example would be:

These field labels can be changed as necessary for your staff. 

Import Sample Reports

There are two reports available on the Example Reports page -- 

Cannabis Reporting - System Fields Only 

Cannabis Service - Embedded Report option to replace the Services Listview above (uses only System Fields although you may need to reset the filter). 

Modify Reports to include your custom fields. You may need to reset the filters to filter for the Cannabis Expungement Service. If you are handling any Expungements that cover multiple charges, they may also need the charge subtable (and sub-subtables) aggregated so they don't produce multiple records.