At the turn of the millennium, during her teens and early twenties, Heather Chase was addicted to methamphetamine.
To fund her addiction, she broke into cars and homes and forged checks, leading to several arrests and a year in jail. But she got sober in 2004 after attending a court-ordered recovery program in Salt Lake City.
She moved on, ultimately graduating college in 2014 and earning a master’s degree in 2015. Today, she runs the same nonprofit recovery center she attended, called the Haven, where she has worked for 18 years and now serves as executive director.
“It’s like a CEO for a nonprofit, but not as cool sounding,” she says.
Staying ahead of the paper trail
Chase’s last criminal offense was in 2002, she says. But her record followed her for two decades, complicating every step of her life. Landlords repeatedly denied her housing applications, while she sank her money into fruitless $30 rental application fees.
“When you are falling below the poverty line making very little income because of your criminal record, that’s a lot of money,” she says. Even after she became executive director at the Haven in 2015, at one point Utah’s state government said she could not be alone with clients at the center because of her record.
So in 2023, Chase went through the legal process of clearing her record, known as expungement. Expungement is available to people who have committed certain types of crimes and have remained crime-free for some designated amount of time, among other requirements that vary by state.
To clear her record, Chase used an online tool made by Rasa Legal, a company operating in Utah and Arizona, that uses generative AI and other automation software to accelerate the expungement process.
“We’re trying to automate everything that doesn’t require creativity or judgment,” says Noella Sudbury, the founder and CEO of Rasa. “For expungement, that’s about 90% of the work.”
... continue reading