Four Steps to Prepare for Clean Slate Law

The following article was first published on Shipman & Goodwin attorney Daniel Schwartz’ Connecticut Employment Law blog. It is reposted here with permission.

In Clean Slate Law on Horizon for Employers Regardless of Other Delays, I detailed all the changes that were occurring due to the new clean slate law that goes into effect Jan. 1, 2023.  

You might have missed hearing about the law because it passed in 2021 and the deadline seemed far away.

Well it’s here now.

So after you read the last post, here are four things employers should do to get ready for the new law.

1. Review your employment application. If your application asks about criminal history (and there’s good reasons for and against this), then you need to update the notice that goes in it to make it conform to the new law. I cited the language in the previous post. 
2. Review background check practice. If you use background checks, be sure the company you work with will comply with the new law. Better still, make sure your HR person who reviews such checks knows not to pass along any “erased criminal history records” to the hiring manager.
3. Educate managers. Because it will be a discriminatory practice to discriminate based on an erased criminal history record, make sure your staff know not to use such information in employment decisions. In addition, hiring managers should be told to be cautious about relying on old criminal records (including those found in Google searches from old news articles) for employment decisions. Make sure the hiring process is clean.
4. Revise your policies. As noted above, it will now be considered discrimination to use such erased records in employment decisions. Employers may want to consider revising EEO policies to add this as a protected class.

At a minimum, employers should advise employees making hiring decisions of this new law and ensure that such erased records aren’t relied on.

About the author: About the author: Daniel Schwartz is a partner at Shipman & Goodwin and represents employers in various employment law matters. He is also the author of the Connecticut Employment Law Blog, which discusses new and noteworthy events in labor and employment law on a daily basis.