Overview
The Clean Slate Engine reads a client's criminal history record, identifies the California laws that allow a conviction to be dismissed or reduced, and generates court-ready petitions for attorney review, cutting preparation time by an estimated 80%.
Proven in a statewide pilot
Pro bono hours mobilized
Petitions filed
Counties
Petitions granted
CSE builds on a three-year pilot with the California Community Colleges' Rising Scholars Program. The results were independently verified by Professor Sarah Lageson of Northeastern University.
How It Works
Every case follows the same five stages, from intake to filing, with two mandatory checkpoints: an attorney's review and a person signing and filing.
Intake
Staff upload RAP sheet documents and the engine's RAP scanner extracts case and conviction information; staff can also enter cases by hand.
About the RAP Scanner →Analysis
Clicking Analyze checks each conviction against 27 rules and 17 code-section lists — code section, sentence, probation history, dates, supervision and registry status; six pre-check rules report what's missing.
Attorney review
An attorney confirms review; the button stays disabled until every conviction is analyzed. Only attorney and administrator accounts can set it, and each change writes to an audit table.
Packet generation
Selects forms for the county and remedies found, fills every mapped field, and adds a cover page listing the forms produced and any unfilled field.
Filing
Staff download, print, sign, and file the packet with the court.
The RAP Scanner
The RAP Scanner turns a scanned California RAP sheet into a structured record of convictions, using more than 800 explicit parsing and interpretation rules.
Text extraction
AWS Textract converts the PDF to text and preserves the page structure.
Parse
The text becomes structured rows, one per charge or event, keeping the sheet's wording.
Interpret each row
Rules separate statute codes, identify courts and counties, and read custody and probation terms.
Connect the record
Later court actions are linked to earlier convictions, duplicate entries merged, and dismissed counts identified.
The extracted cases populate the client's profile, alongside a color-highlighted copy of the RAP sheet and a review document. Every value is stored with the rule and source line that produced it. An optional AI assist, off by default, can fill blank fields but never replaces a rule-derived value.
The Legal Engine
The engine evaluates nine California statutory record-clearance remedies through 27 rules and 17 code-section lists containing 1,223 entries.
Nine forms of relief
Under the rules
Remedies
Rules
Code-section lists
List entries
How the rules work
Every rule tests structured facts with 21 yes-or-no operators. There is no free-text interpretation. Code-section matching is exact.
Kept current
County details, form templates, and field mappings are database records — kept current for all 58 California counties.
Security & Data Isolation
Each organization's data is isolated at four layers, from the data model through identity, API, and files.
Data model
Every record carries an organization key, and every query filters on it.
Identity
A sign-in token carries the user's organization, role, and firm; organization comes from the token, not the request.
API
On every request a shared handler validates organization and role; on creation, the caller's organization overwrites submitted values.
Files
Document storage keys are prefixed by organization; downloads pass through a gateway that verifies the token and organization.
Volunteers with a firm assignment see only that firm's clients. Reference data — forms, mappings, county details, rules — is shared by design; client, case, conviction, document, and user data stay isolated.
AES-256 at rest · TLS in transit (plaintext refused) · invite-only with email verification and password complexity · per-user or org-wide MFA · three roles (Attorney, Staff, Volunteer) · action audit logging · client profiles auto-delete one year after creation unless held · 90-day export window at offboarding · AWS us-west-2 (Oregon)
Time Savings
Measured against TAP's manual workflow, CSE shifts staff time from data entry and routine research to verification and legal judgment.
| Stage | Manual | CSE | Time saved | Reduction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read + transcribe | 30 min | 10 min | 20 min | 67% |
| Analyze convictions + apply remedies | 35 min | 5 min | 30 min | 86% |
| Petition assembly | 30 min | 5 min | 25 min | 83% |
| Total | 95 min | 20 min | 75 min | 80% |
Methodology and assumptions. TAP estimates time savings by comparing staff time required for the three core stages automated by the Clean Slate Engine: RAP review and transcription, conviction analysis and remedy determination, and petition assembly. Based on TAP's operating experience, these stages require approximately 95 minutes per RAP on average using a manual workflow, compared with approximately 20 minutes using CSE with human verification and attorney review, an estimated 80% reduction in document-processing and petition-preparation time. This estimate does not include other necessary components of record-clearance representation, including client intake and education, RAP acquisition, filing and service, hearings, client communications, or paper, postage, and related costs. Those activities remain part of the staff time and cost required to serve each client.
Expanding the reach of legal organizations
Clean Slate Engine is built for California legal aid organizations, public defender offices, reentry nonprofits, and pro bono programs operating record-clearance practices.
Unlimited users
Every subscription includes unlimited attorney, staff, and volunteer accounts, with no per-user fees.
Built-in pro bono coordination
Assign volunteers to law firms and clients within the platform. Volunteers see only their firm's clients, while attorneys and staff manage assignments and oversight.
Two engagement options
Operate independently through a self-directed subscription, or receive hands-on support from TAP with implementation, workflow design, and ongoing operations.
Reach out at cse@accessprojectca.org. We're always glad to talk through partnerships, legal review, or technical and security questions.
Need help clearing your own record?
The Clean Slate Engine is designed for organizations that provide record-clearance services. If you need help clearing your own record, contact a legal aid organization in your area.
Find a legal aid organization
