Expunction & Record Sealing Attorney in McKinney & Collin County
Your past does not have to follow you forever. If you were arrested in Collin County and the case never went anywhere — dismissed, acquitted, no charge filed, or eligible for sealing — Texas law gives you a way to clean it up. A simple background check pulled by an employer, a landlord, or a licensing board can resurface that arrest years after it should have been forgotten. There are two tools that fix it. One destroys the record. The other hides it. Picking the right one, and getting it filed correctly the first time, is the difference between a clean slate and another rejection letter.
Two paths Texas gives you: expunction or nondisclosure
People use the words interchangeably. The statutes do not. They are different remedies, with different eligibility, different paperwork, and very different outcomes.
Expunction — Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 55.01
An expunction destroys the record. The court orders every agency that touched your case — the arresting department, the county clerk, the district attorney, the Department of Public Safety, the jail — to physically destroy or return the file. After the order is signed and the agencies comply, the arrest is treated as if it never happened. You can legally answer “no” on a job application that asks if you have ever been arrested.
You can pursue expunction under art. 55.01 if any of these apply:
- You were arrested but never formally charged, and the wait period has passed.
- The charge was dismissed by the prosecutor or the court.
- You were acquitted at trial.
- You received an actual-innocence pardon.
The wait periods, when no charge was ever filed, are written into the statute:
- 180 days for a Class C misdemeanor arrest.
- One year for a Class A or Class B misdemeanor arrest.
- Three years for a felony arrest.
If your case was dismissed or you were acquitted, the wait period is generally satisfied by the disposition itself, though the statute of limitations on the underlying offense still matters. We check both before filing.
Nondisclosure — Tex. Gov’t Code §§ 411.072 and 411.0735
A nondisclosure does not destroy the record. It seals it from public view. Standard background checks run by employers, landlords, and most private parties will not see the offense. Law enforcement, prosecutors, certain state licensing agencies, and a list of regulated industries still can.
Two of the most common nondisclosure paths:
- § 411.072 — Automatic order of nondisclosure. Available for first-time, non-violent misdemeanors after a successful discharge from deferred adjudication, in cases where the deferred adjudication was placed on or after September 1, 2017. If you qualify, the order issues automatically with no petition required — though in practice you often have to push the court and DPS to actually enter and honor it.
- § 411.0735 — Nondisclosure after misdemeanor confinement. Available for certain misdemeanor convictions where you served jail time, after a two-year wait following release.
If you took deferred adjudication on a felony, completed it, and want it sealed, that falls under a separate petition track and depends heavily on the offense.
Baseline eligibility — Tex. Gov’t Code § 411.074
Before any nondisclosure path opens, § 411.074 has to clear. It carves out a list of disqualifying offenses where sealing is never available, regardless of the disposition. The disqualifiers include:
- Family violence offenses.
- Sex offenses requiring registration.
- Certain weapons offenses.
- Capital felonies.
- Other listed offenses such as murder, aggravated kidnapping, and offenses against children.
Even outside § 411.074, you cannot have any intervening criminal history during the wait period — no convictions, no deferred adjudications other than fine-only Class C cases, depending on which subsection applies. One slip during the wait window resets eligibility.
For expunction under art. 55.01, the eligibility test is different and tied to the disposition of the specific case, not a global criminal-history check. But timing still matters, and so does whether the prosecutor can still refile.
Why this matters
A single arrest, even with no conviction, can quietly cost you for the rest of your working life. Background checks turn up:
- During hiring, especially in healthcare, finance, education, transportation, and any role with a security clearance.
- During apartment screening. McKinney, Frisco, and Plano landlords routinely deny applicants with any arrest in the last seven years.
- On professional license applications, including nursing, real estate, insurance, teaching, and any DPS-regulated trade.
- On college applications and graduate school admissions.
- During child-custody disputes, where opposing counsel will dig up anything that ever hit the system.
- On firearm purchases, where pending charges and certain dispositions can flag a denial even when no conviction exists.
Texas employers are not required to ignore an arrest that was dismissed. Most pull a database that does not distinguish between “arrested and acquitted” and “convicted.” The remedy is to remove the entry, not to explain it.
Call (214) 982-1408 — free consultation, available 24/7. Spanish and Portuguese services available.
How Kent Starr handles expunction & nondisclosure work
Kent Wade Starr has been practicing criminal defense in Collin County since 1997 — nearly 30 years of trial experience and more than 15,000 cases handled. He earned his JD from the University of Arkansas, holds a Master of Laws (LLM) in Taxation from the University of Denver, and studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, focused on international law. He clerked for the Supreme Court of Arkansas and for the Navajo Nation Supreme Court before going into private practice. He is an Avvo Clients’ Choice Award recipient and was selected to Super Lawyers in 2023, with more than 500 verified five-star Google reviews from clients across Collin, Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant Counties.
Record-clearing work looks routine on paper. In practice it is procedural, deadline-heavy, and unforgiving of small mistakes. A petition that names the wrong agency, lists an old address, or misses a single hold pulls the order off the rails and the record stays.
What we do on every case:
- Pull the records first. We request your full DPS criminal-history file and the local court records before drafting anything. About one in five clients is wrong about what is actually on their record. Some have arrests they do not remember. Others assume something is on there that was never reported.
- Confirm the right path. Expunction if it qualifies, nondisclosure if it does not. We do not file an expunction petition that is going to be denied just to “try.” A denial creates its own paper trail.
- Draft the petition correctly. Every petition names every agency that holds the record, every reporting database, every prior address tied to the arrest. Miss one, and that agency keeps the file.
- Serve every required party. The State, DPS, the arresting agency, the county jail, the court clerk, the prosecutor’s office. If the offense was reported to a federal database, that gets served too.
- Appear at the hearing if one is set. Most uncontested petitions in Collin County are signed without testimony. When the State pushes back, Kent argues it.
- Follow up after the order is signed. A signed order is not the end. We confirm DPS has updated your record, that the arresting agency has destroyed or sealed its file, and that the major background-check vendors have pulled the entry. If a private vendor keeps reporting, we send the order and demand correction.
Spanish and Portuguese services available throughout the engagement.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between an expunction and a nondisclosure in Texas? An expunction under Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 55.01 destroys the record. Once granted, the arrest, charge, and court file are physically removed and you can legally deny the incident ever happened. A nondisclosure under Tex. Gov’t Code §§ 411.072 or 411.0735 only seals the record from public view. Employers running standard background checks will not see it, but law enforcement, licensing boards, and certain agencies still can. Expunction is the stronger remedy. Nondisclosure is the fallback when you do not qualify for expunction, typically after a deferred adjudication or a misdemeanor where you served confinement.
Can a DWI be expunged in Texas? Only if you were never convicted. If your DWI was dismissed, you were acquitted at trial, or you were arrested but never formally charged, you can pursue expunction under art. 55.01 once the wait period passes. If you were convicted, expunction is not available. If you received deferred adjudication on certain DWI cases, nondisclosure may be possible. We pull the file and tell you which path, if any, applies.
Can a deferred adjudication be expunged? No. Deferred adjudication does not result in a conviction, but it also does not qualify for expunction under art. 55.01. The remedy for deferred adjudication is nondisclosure. For first-time, non-violent misdemeanors with deferred adjudication discharged on or after September 1, 2017, an automatic order of nondisclosure under § 411.072 may apply with no petition required. For other cases, including felonies and many misdemeanors, a petition is required.
Will the record really come off background checks? After an expunction order is granted and served, every agency that holds the record, including DPS, the arresting agency, the court clerk, and the prosecutor, is ordered to destroy or return the records. Private background-check companies that pulled data before the order must update their files. Compliance is not always instant. We follow up with the Texas Department of Public Safety and major reporting databases to confirm the removal. After a nondisclosure, public-facing background checks should no longer return the offense, but law enforcement and certain licensing agencies still see it.
How long does the expunction process take? It depends on the wait period and the court’s docket. The statute requires 180 days after a Class C arrest, one year after a Class A or B arrest, and three years after a felony arrest if no charge was filed. Once the wait period clears, drafting and filing the petition usually takes a few weeks. The court then sets a hearing, typically 30 to 60 days out in Collin County. After the order is signed, agency compliance can take an additional 30 to 90 days. Plan on three to six months from the day you hire counsel.
Do I have to go to court for an expunction or nondisclosure? Often, no. Many expunction and nondisclosure petitions are unopposed, and Collin County judges will sign the order without a contested hearing if the petition is clean and every required agency was served. If the State or an agency objects, a hearing is required and Kent will appear with you. Automatic nondisclosures under § 411.072 do not require a hearing at all.
Call before another background check costs you a job
Every month you wait is a month that arrest stays searchable. The wait periods do not start running once you decide to act — they started the day of the arrest or the day the case was disposed of. For most clients, the eligibility window is already open.
Kent personally handles every case. Call (214) 982-1408. Free telephone consultation, available 24/7. We pull the records, tell you whether expunction or nondisclosure applies, and give you a flat-fee quote on the spot. Spanish and Portuguese services available.
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Disclaimer: Past results afford no guarantee of future results. Each case is different and is judged on its own merits. Kent Starr is the attorney responsible for the content of this page. Principal office: 5900 S Lake Forest Dr., Ste 200, McKinney, TX 75070.
