Occupational Licensing Reforms and Criminal Convictions

In legislation that may have escaped the notice of some criminal law practitioners, the North Carolina General Assembly enacted significant reforms this year to the state’s occupational licensing laws. The reforms, which apply to applications for licensure submitted on or after October 1, 2019, significantly lessen legal barriers to obtaining an occupational license for people with a criminal conviction. The legislation, S.L. 2019-91 (H 770), received bipartisan support, passing both chambers unanimously. Before passage of these reforms, many occupational licensing statutes in North Carolina allowed or required licensing boards to disqualify a person from obtaining a license if he or she had a conviction for a crime of one kind or another. This authority usually appeared in the chapter of the General Statutes governing the occupation. In addition to the barriers created by these provisions, they could be inconsistent and difficult to track down. In 2013, the General Assembly took a step to address these barriers by revising Chapter 93B of the General Statutes, which governs licensing boards generally. The 2013 legislation revised G.S. 93B-8.1 to prohibit the automatic denial of an occupational license based on an applicant’s criminal record and to direct licensing boards to consider various factors in deciding whether to deny licensure. The revised statute, however, still required denial of a license if the law otherwise required denial, as provided in many occupational licensing statutes, and allowed licensing boards discretion in weighing the statutory factors. The 2019 reforms go much further in new and amended provisions of Chapter [...]