Comparing Your Options

Three Ways to Clear Your Arizona Record

For most Arizona record-relief petitions, you have three reasonable options. Each fits different situations. Here's an honest comparison.

Why these three exist as separate categories

Pro se filing — your statutory right, with effort attached

Arizona allows any qualified petitioner to file their own record-relief petition. There is no requirement that you hire an attorney or a service. The court charges $0 in filing fees, and the procedural rules are publicly accessible. This is by legislative design — Arizona deliberately structured these remedies to be available to people who can't afford professional help.

The trade-off is the time investment. Reading § 13-911 carefully, finding the right form, drafting the petition correctly, gathering exhibits, serving the prosecutor properly, and tracking deadlines is genuine work. People who succeed pro se are those willing to invest 6-12 hours of careful research and attention.

The risk is real. A § 13-911 denial under § 13-911(L) triggers a 3-year refile bar. If a procedural defect causes a denial, you've lost three years of waiting for no benefit.

Document preparation — eligibility and drafting handled, you file

Document preparation services exist because most petitioners want the petition prepared correctly but don't need full attorney representation. The work product is professional: statutory eligibility verified, petition drafted on the correct form, exhibits checklist provided, county-specific filing instructions included, prosecutor service address and method specified.

What's NOT included: court appearances, legal advice on your specific facts, or representation in contested hearings. These are the things that legally require an attorney in Arizona — and document preparation services explicitly don't do them.

For most petitioners with clean facts, this is the value sweet spot. The work that actually drives a successful filing — eligibility verification, correct drafting, proper service — is done by people who do this professionally. The work that doesn't add much value (driving to the courthouse, mailing certified mail, collecting your own discharge order) stays on you and saves you the attorney markup.

Attorney representation — full delegation, full price

An attorney handles everything. You meet with them, share your facts, sign a retainer, and they drive the case to completion. They appear at any hearing, respond to any objection, and file all paperwork on your behalf. Your time investment is essentially zero after the initial consultation.

The price reflects the attorney's liability, court appearances, and the value of their time. For straightforward sealing or set-aside, $1,500-$3,000 is typical. For complicated cases, it can go higher.

Attorney representation makes sense when:

• Your case has unusual facts that need legal analysis
• You've been denied before and need to understand why
• You expect the prosecutor to contest substantively
• Your time is genuinely worth more than the price difference
• You want the maximum possible chance of a granted petition on the first try

How to decide

If you're honestly unsure which fits, run our free screening first. The screening tells you whether your case has clean facts (in which case any of the three options would work) or whether there are complications that suggest professional help. The screening is free, runs in about 3 minutes, and doesn't require you to commit to anything.

After the screening, if your case is clean, you'll see honest guidance on which option fits. We don't recommend our service to people who would be just as well-served filing pro se — and we tell people directly when we think their case warrants attorney representation rather than document preparation.