Students at Baton Rouge Community College facing barriers to employment due to legal troubles of the past will receive relief under a new partnership between BRCC and the Southern University Law Center.

The agreement will help BRCC students who need assistance with expungement services and provide their paralegal students with a learning environment tied to Southern's law school.

"We have a large number of students who come in with some baggage and some barriers," BRCC chancellor Willie Smith said. "They may have been incarcerated or have some things on their record. Partnering with Southern Law School, they’ll have free expungement opportunities where the lawyers will work with those clients and try to help expunge those records so they can be employed.”

According to Smith, the partnership is an effort to bridge the gap between people who want to join the workforce through the BRCC degree programs and local employers who are in desperate need of skilled workers.

Smith said students in any BRCC program will qualify, for free, and that any crime that is eligible for expungement is on the table.

“There are some offenses that may be more mild than normal but are also still eligible for expungement through the law," he said. "I’m not saying murder is one of them or those sorts of things, but there are some crimes a little bit above minor that students have on their record when they come in. They aren’t able to work and those lawyers are going to help support them with that.”

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