A former general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) disagrees with its recent guidance to not ask about convictions in employment applications.

“A few jurisdictions ‘ban the box’,” that asks whether an applicant has any prior convictions, noted Don Livingston, now an attorney with Akin Gump in Washington, D.C. “In those jurisdictions, employers are barred from asking about criminal convictions at the application stage of the hiring process.”