We have discounted fees during COVID:
No Conviction. We charge $1,500 plus taxes and costs if your case did not result in a conviction. Click here for a sample fee agreement for a case not involving a conviction. Many of these are arrests but the case was dismissed by the court or the prosecutor. Another example is a case which resulted in a conditional discharge. If you successfully completed your term of probation on a conditional discharge, the case is dismissed without a conviction.
Conviction. For cases that resulted in a conviction, we charge $3,000 plus taxes and costs. Click here for a sample fee agreement for a case that resulted in a conviction. These include cases involving jail or prison, suspended sentences, supervised and unsupervised probation, deferred sentences, and also cases that began as a conditional discharge but, after a probation violation, was upgraded to one of the forms of conviction.
Costs. What are costs? How much do they run? The NM Department of Public Safety (DPS) charges a nominal cost to print out your rap sheet and the FBI does the same to your your criminal history. If your case is not online and has been archived, there are some costs to get copies. In one case we pulled 130 pages from archives and it cost $35.25. It costs $144.05 to file the petition to expunge and $13 for each pleading thereafter. And there are some mailing costs, for example $51.42 to send copies of the petition by certified mail to interested parties including the district attorney, the arresting agency, and DPS.
Can I pay over time? Definitely. Active criminal cases have strict “speedy trial” time limits, so lawyers expect to be paid so much down for a retainer and so much per months. For expungements, by contrast, there are no time limits for filing. That means you can pay as little down and as little per month as you can afford, interest free. There is a catch however (I knew it): The lawyers will not begin in earnest to research your case and draft pleadings until one-third of the fee is paid ($500 for a no-conviction-expungement and $1,000 to expunge a conviction). Also they will not file the petition to expunge in district court until your fee is paid in full. In the meantime your money will be held in our IOLTA client trust account. Or simply save up enough money and then hire the attorney. In either case, we don’t mind waiting but, the sooner you get your criminal record expunged, the sooner you can start reaping the benefits!
