It is not an exaggeration to state that when it comes to navigating life after an encounter with the criminal legal system, consumer justice is criminal justice.
For criminal defense lawyers, it may not be immediately apparent, but ensuring justice for criminal defendants also requires truth, accuracy and accountability in the criminal history reports that follow. Where criminal defense leaves off, consumer protection takes over.
This legal tag team effort is the only path to true and consistent justice for anyone who has ever bumped up against the criminal legal system at some point in time.
This is why Consumer Justice Law Firm sponsors the NACDL & NCDD’s 2025 DWI & Drug Seminar and works closely with the NACDL & NCDD to ensure that consumer reporting issues remain on the radar of criminal defense attroneys nationwide.
Keep reading to learn about the seemingly unlikely partnership between criminal defense lawyers and consumer protection lawyers, or take a deeper dive into fixing criminal background check errors on our practice page.
Quick Links
What is the NACDL and NCDD?
For anyone who has encounters with the law, the importance of a dedicated and experienced criminal defense attorney is immeasurable.
Across the spectrum of possiblities, from being arrested but not charged to being convicted and serving time, working with the right criminal defense attorney can be the entire difference in a defendant’s experience and outcome.
This is especially true given the deeply entrenched inequities which persist in a criminal legal process shaped by systemic bias, prejudice, and injustice.
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) is a professional organization that maintains a network of resources, educational opportunities, conferences, and more, devoted to “ensuring that its members and others in the criminal defense bar are fully equipped to serve all accused persons at the highest level.”
In this capactiy, NACDL is, arguably, one of the most important professional organizations in the legal world. And along with the National College for DUI Defense (NCDD), NACDL is at the forefront of protecting critical rights for criminal defendants arrested, charged, and convicted of DUI and Drug crimes, specifically.
What Criminal Defendants Need to Know About Background Check Errors
Guarding against injustice in the criminal legal system is the role of a criminal defense attorney, and the purview of the NACDL.
But what most people don’t realize is that injustice can also show up as criminal background check errors.
This form of injustice follows criminal defendants long after they’ve had encounters with the law, paid their dues, or served their time. And the extended harm caused by criminal background check errors tends to linger unapologetically until it gets formally squashed.
This is because consumer reporting errors are an extension of the same flawed system that makes fairness and equity in criminal justice aspirational rather than actual. When criminal history mistakes show up weeks, months, or years after someone has encounters with the law, it can cause devasting financial, professional, credit, and reputational damage.
Background check errors can:
- haunt and torment a financial future
- crush employment prospects
- tank housing opportunities
- unnecessarily tarnish a reputation
- cause massively unwelcome stress and mental trauma
- destroy any opportunity to move on
This is why, at Consumer Justice Law Firm, we see the role of our consumer protection attorneys as complementary to the work of the NACDL.
Once a criminal case has come to an end, the consumer protection case is typically just beginning.
Most Common Criminal History Errors
When a background check is required for employment, insurance, security clearances, apartment rentals, or other opportunities, a criminal history report is standard.
Public records, including records from courts, law enforcement agencies, Department of Motor Vehicles (DMVs), state and federal criminal databases, sex offender registries, terrorist watchlists, and more, are used to gather and compile criminal data.
However, given the scale and scope of the data being pulled by the nation’s largest background check companies, errors are a chronic and relentless problem.
Background check errors are exacerbated by the consumer reporting industry’s near complete reliance on automated processes to do the work, including the review and elimination of what should be obviously erroneous info. What this automated system gains in efficiency, it loses in accuracy.
The most common criminal history errors include things like:
- reporting sealed or expunged records
- reporting someone else’s criminal record in the wrong file
- duplicate entries
- inaccurate dispositions
- reporting a felony after taking a plea deal to a misdemeanor
- failure to get authorization
- failing to report that charges were dropped or never filed
What the Law Says About Background Check Errors
The reporting of inaccurate or unreportable criminal history information isn’t just inconvenient, it’s unlawful.
Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), background check companies are considered consumer reporting agencies, making them responsible for adherence to critical legal obligations.
Prime among these legal obligations is the requirement to report accurate information about people, including criminal history information. This obligation is buoyed by additional obligations to investigate disputes and correct errors.
The failure to maintain a standard of accuracy and the failure to appropriately and adqueately respond to disputes arising out of errors in background check reports, creates longterm, persistent, damaging problems.
It is this abundance of background check reporting errors that solidifies a need for criminal defendants to be guided toward reputable consumer protection attorneys in the wake of their experiences with the criminal legal system.
Justice demands it.
The NACDL, a national source of thought leadership for criminal defense lawyers, recognizes this truth and encourages criminal defense attorneys to avoid sending their clients into the wild wild west of consumer reporting errors without well-versed consumer protection back up.
2025 DWI & Drug Seminar Sponsors and Beyond
Consumer Justice Law Firm is honored to be part of NACDL’s mission to dismantle the injustice of our criminal legal system, especially around issues involving DWI and drug offenses.
In furtherance of our committment as advocates for consumer justice, Consumer Justice Law Firm is sponsoring the NACDL & NCDD’s 2025 DWI & Drug Seminar.
We invite all attorneys in attendance to stop by our booth to learn about the inevitability and impact of criminal history errors that plague criminal defendants long after they’ve settled criminal matters. And to discuss the success of our attorney referral program.
After criminal defense attorneys help their clients navigate the criminal legal system, we help them navigate the civil legal system. Same team, same clients, same goal- justice!
Ensuring justice for anyone who has encounters with the criminal legal system doesn’t stop once they leave court, strike deals, or serve time. Justice also requires truth, accuracy, and accountability in the facts that get reported going forward.
For anyone unable to connect with us in person during this year’s conference, we welcome you to reach out with questions or conversations about what we do, how we become the next line of defense, and how you can benefit from joining our attorney referral program.
Check out our resources online and reach out. We also build customized marketing and communications materials to optimize the impact of our partnerships with criminal defense firms.
Fighting Background Check Errors
Reach out at any time.
We’re already looking forward to next year!