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Hello -

So I recently received a summer associate offer position at a V100 firm. I have gone through all the onboarding and I just received word that something came up on my background check. Apparently, a few years ago, someone filed a protection order (harassment?) against me (I do not know this person), the case came up with no identifiers and was dismissed by the judge.

I am freaking out a little bit because this was my only offer and I never knew about this thing being filed or whatever. I told the firm that I do not know what that is about and the onboarding person said they were sending it to counsel to make sure everything was okay.

Should I be more concerned about this? will this cause them to rescind the offer? Any advice or comments is extremely appreciated.

Thanks

Bumping because I am still stressed

Seems as though someone attempted to get an order ex parte & the judge dismissed the petition because all of the necessary elements were not included in the person's testimony before the court.

Broadly speaking: One needs to get a copy for one's records & one needs to get this matter expunged.

One should have little to no problem getting this expunged if the required steps are followed as a properly licensed attorney in the relevant jurisdiction should know.

This may qualify for emergency action by the court since it may cause unjustified harm & time is of the essence. "Emergency Motion For Expungement".

My opinion is not intended as legal advice. Seek local counsel ASAP.

Was this filed in a jurisdiction you plausibly have connections to? And do you have a common-ish name?

The fact that you don't know the person (assuming you mean really-don't-know, not went-to-high-school-together-but-never-talked) suggests to me that the court may have misidentified you as the target of the order. These petitions are often vague in describing the target of the order, and whoever took the filing may have picked the first person with your name in the system.

Agree that you should get counsel, but it may be worth finding out if you were tagged as related to this order as the result of a clerical error.