Brooks Law Firm
You have been charged, and the court date is not the only thing at stake. This page answers the three questions everyone asks, then sends you to the page written for your situation. All of it is about now — while the case is pending — not about years from now.
The three questions
Who will find out, and when?
The charge is a public court record the day it is filed, and a Tennessee background check shows arrests, not only convictions. But public is not the same as noticed. Employers, boards, and schools learn about a charge three ways: you tell them, a check gets run, or someone required to report it does. Which one applies to you is the first thing to sort out, and it depends on your job, your license, and your family situation.
Do I have to tell anyone?
Sometimes — and when you do, the duty is written down: a handbook, a board rule, a federal regulation, a platform’s terms. Tennessee law imposes no general duty to tell a private employer about a pending charge. Many people have agreed to one anyway. Volunteering when you did not have to, and missing a three-day deadline you did not know about, are equally expensive. Read the rule that applies to you before you decide anything.
What is the one thing not to do?
Explain. Not to coworkers, not to the other parent, not in a group text, not to an investigator who wants your side, and not in writing to a board or an employer before a lawyer has read the question. A charge is not a conviction. Most of the damage people do to their own cases, they do by talking in the first two weeks.
Pick your situation
- Your job — whether to tell your employer, whether they will find out, what to say, and what FedEx, UPS, Amazon, the hospitals, government, and the rideshare apps actually check
- Background checks — what a pending charge shows right now, where, and what changes when the case ends
- Your license — professional boards, CDL, and police certification: the rules, the clocks, and the plea that hurts licensed people
- Your family — custody while a charge is pending, and what a parent does when it is the child who was charged
Where this connects
- After an arrest in Memphis | How bond works | Arraignment | How long a case takes
- First-time offender in Memphis — the outcomes that keep a record clean
- Criminal charges and your career — why the outcome matters more than the sentence
- What a criminal defense lawyer costs in Memphis
Talk to a Memphis criminal defense lawyer
Brooks Law Firm handles these cases every week in Shelby County General Sessions and the surrounding counties, and builds the defense around what you stand to lose outside the courtroom. Call the office at (901) 324-5000, or call or text the criminal line at 901-412-2973, for a free, confidential consultation. Se habla Español.