Post-Conviction Relief: How Dolan Law Offices Can Help You

A conviction keeps costing you long after the case is closed. It shows up in job applications, rental applications, and professional licensing. California law provides several routes to change what your record shows, and Dolan Law Offices can help you work out which one applies to your case.

Dolan Law Offices is a criminal law firm handling DUI defense, domestic violence, violent and serious felonies, and post-conviction matters. John Patrick Dolan has been admitted to the California Bar since 1978 and is a State Bar Certified Specialist in Criminal Law.

What post-conviction relief actually is

This is the part most people get wrong, and it is worth being precise about. The relief described below does not undo a conviction, and it is not an appeal. It changes what the record shows and what that record costs you going forward. An appeal is a separate process with its own strict deadlines, usually measured in days after sentencing.

Dismissal under Penal Code 1203.4

Often called an expungement. Where you completed probation and meet the statutory requirements, the court can withdraw the plea or verdict and dismiss the case. The conviction is not erased, and it remains visible to law enforcement, to the State Bar and to some licensing bodies. What it does change is significant: for most private employment applications in California, you can lawfully answer that you have not been convicted.

Felony reduction under Penal Code 17(b)

Where the offense was a wobbler, meaning it could have been charged as either a felony or a misdemeanor, and you were granted probation, the court may reduce it to a misdemeanor. This is often paired with a 1203.4 dismissal, and it is frequently the more valuable of the two.

Certificate of Rehabilitation

A court order declaring that you have been rehabilitated. It is available in a narrower set of circumstances, generally after a defined waiting period, and for some convictions it also operates as an application for a governor’s pardon.

What matters to your eligibility

How the old case ended is what decides which route is open to you: whether probation was granted and completed, whether it was violated, whether any of the sentence was served in state prison, what the offense was, and how long ago it happened. Those are the questions worth having answers to before you spend anything.

If you are looking to clear or reduce an old California conviction, contact Dolan Law Offices for a free consultation and the firm will tell you what is actually available in your situation.

This article is general information about California law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every case turns on its own facts. No result is promised or implied, and past results do not guarantee future outcomes.

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