In August 2014, 15 months after she left prison, Tarra Simmons began her law degree at Seattle University. Just before she graduated this past summer, demoralizing news arrived: Her application to the Washington state bar had been rejected because of her past criminal convictions, and she wouldn’t be allowed to take the bar exam.

“Individuals serve time incarcerated. One would think once they’d done that, we would welcome them back into society and facilitate their reentry,” Annette Clark, dean of Seattle’s law school, told me in an interview. “Because these are folks we need—I think we need Tarra Simmons as a lawyer.”

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There are similar restrictions throughout the working world. Members of the “ban the box” movement campaign to remove the common checkbox on employment forms that prompts applicants to disclose whether they have a criminal record. And Deborah Rhode, a Stanford Law School professor, estimates that nearly 30 percent of the American workforce must obtain an occupational license, which also typically has good-character requirements.

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People with criminal records often don’t consider applying to law schools, because they see the legal profession as out of reach, said Debbie Mukamal, who heads a research institute at Stanford Law School. She sees a need for a “domino effect” of reforms that normalize former prisoners becoming lawyers, create mentorship and scholarship opportunities, and actively recruit them to law schools. “What we’re all realizing is that individuals who have gone through those life experiences can make some of the best attorneys,” Clark told me. “They know what it’s like. They have credibility. They oftentimes come with a great deal of passion and compassion.”