Partner Profiles
Asher Josephs
“Power of Expungement Makes a Big Impact – On Interns, Too!”
Expungement is a team game! And the Reclaim Your Future team is a diverse, statewide coalition that includes attorneys, organizers, content creators, and expungement interns like Asher Josephs, a student at the University of Arizona who spent his summer at our free legal clinics helping people learn about the expungement process.
“It was crazy to see at all of our events how so many people have had their lives significantly altered for doing something that is now legal.”
“I decided to work as an intern for the coalition because it’s a great cause, and I knew I’d have a fun experience helping people,” said Asher, a 20-year-old law and accounting double major at UofA who interned alongside the folks at Arizona Justice Project. “It was crazy to see at all of our events how so many people have had their lives significantly altered for doing something that is now legal.
“It’s terrible that there are people who still have a marijuana conviction affecting them, and they haven’t been able to move on from it yet,” he said.
Asher’s undecided about whether he’ll become a lawyer himself. But one expungee, who Asher helped at a free Phoenix College legal clinic, certainly showed Asher the impact of the work.
“His marijuana conviction didn’t alter this person’s career path at all. But he did tell me that the record of the conviction continued to weigh on him mentally,” Asher said. “So, seeing the relief wash over him almost right before our eyes when we got him through the expungement process was incredibly rewarding.”
