A coordinated effort called Clean Slate Mississippi is rolling out free expungement clinics in cities across the state through the fall of 2026, with sessions already held in Jackson and additional clinics scheduled in Columbus, Vicksburg, Oxford and other locations. The clinics pair volunteer attorneys with Mississippians who are eligible to have old convictions sealed, handling the petition, the court filing, and the follow-up paperwork at no cost to the applicant. Here is what the program is, how the clinics operate on the ground, and what Mississippi residents with eligible records should know about whether they qualify.
What Clean Slate Mississippi is
Clean Slate Mississippi is a coalition of legal-aid organizations, volunteer lawyer groups, and local courts that has been organizing single-day expungement events in cities across the state. The model is the same one used by similar programs in other states: a hosting court or nonprofit opens its doors for a Saturday or weeknight session, pre-registers applicants, and matches each applicant with a volunteer attorney who reviews the eligible record, prepares the petition, files it with the court, and follows up on any questions the clerk raises. The applicant does not pay a legal fee and, under the program's structure, the filing fees that would normally apply are either waived for indigent petitioners or covered by a partner organization.
The program is not the same as an automated expungement law. Mississippi has not yet enacted a comprehensive Clean Slate Act that would seal eligible records on the state's own initiative, so the work of getting a record cleared still depends on the person with the conviction affirmatively filing a petition. What Clean Slate Mississippi does is remove the two barriers that keep most eligible people from filing on their own: the cost of a lawyer and the difficulty of navigating the court paperwork without one.
How the clinics operate on the ground
The typical clinic runs as a half-day or full-day event. Applicants who have pre-registered bring any documentation they have about the conviction — usually the case number, the court where it was handled, and a copy of the disposition if they can find one. Volunteer attorneys review the record against Mississippi's eligibility criteria, prepare the petition and any supporting affidavits, and file the package with the court during the clinic itself. For straightforward cases the petition is filed the same day; for cases that need additional records or raise eligibility questions, the attorney follows up afterward.
Courts provide space and a clerk to receive filings, county records offices pull the underlying case files, and community organizations handle outreach so that people who would benefit know the clinic is happening. The Oxford clinic scheduled for late September is being run with help from a local legal-education program, and the Vicksburg session is being hosted by the Vicksburg Municipal Court with the Mississippi Volunteer Lawyers Project. Each clinic follows the same template, tuned to the local court system it files into.
Who is eligible and what is not covered
Mississippi's expungement eligibility rules have expanded over the past several years, and most nonviolent misdemeanor convictions become eligible after a waiting period measured from the date the sentence was completed. Felonies are eligible in a narrower set of circumstances, generally tied to the specific offense category and to a longer clean-record window. Cases that are still pending, that resulted in a sentence that has not yet been completed, or that fall outside the categories the statute covers are not eligible under the current law, and no clinic can change that. Attorneys at the clinics screen for eligibility before preparing the petition, so applicants who are screened out are told during the clinic rather than after filing.
There are also records the program does not address. Arrest-only records that did not result in a conviction are not expungeable under Mississippi law in most circumstances, even though they can show up on background checks and cause some of the same collateral damage as convictions. Out-of-state convictions generally need to be addressed in the state where they were entered, not in Mississippi. Anyone in either of those categories can still come to a clinic for a screening, but they should not assume the program will be able to clear their record.
What to do if you want to attend
Clean Slate Mississippi is updating its clinic schedule through the fall, with sessions in multiple cities between September and November 2026. Pre-registration is required for most locations because the volunteer attorneys need time to pull the underlying case files before the clinic day. Anyone interested should check the program's current schedule, gather what documentation they have about the conviction they want sealed, and plan to attend the pre-registration intake even if they are not sure whether their record is eligible. The screening at the clinic is the moment to find out, and the volunteer attorneys will tell an applicant directly whether their record qualifies, what the timeline for the petition will look like, and what to expect after the filing.
For applicants whose petitions are granted, the practical effect of an expungement in Mississippi is the same as it is in most other states: the conviction is sealed from most public-access records, it should not appear on a standard employment background check, and it generally cannot be used as a basis for denying a job, housing, or a professional license. As with every state-level expungement, the data takes time to propagate to private background-check databases, and people whose records have just been cleared should keep their expungement order on hand in case a stale background check surfaces the old charge in the weeks after the order is entered.