The final provision of Massachusetts’ two-year-old CORI reform law quietly went into effect on May 4.

Intended to give employers online access to applicants’ criminal histories while changing what can and cannot appear on initial written job applications, the new regulations could cause a host of legal headaches — including fines and litigation — for unwitting companies that fail to adhere to the rules, according to employment attorneys.

Embedded in the Criminal Offender Record Information reform are specific guidelines dictating what employers have to provide applicants when they conduct background checks, recordkeeping requirements, rules governing a new online database, and a newly rebranded agency to oversee the process.

“It could get confusing for employers in terms of sorting out what their obligations are under the new state law,” said Terence P. McCourt, a labor and employment attorney at Boston’s Greenberg Traurig.

The details

Signed into law by Gov. Deval Patrick in August 2010, a raft of the bill’s provisions went into effect in November of that year, including a “ban-the-box” provision that, with a few exceptions, bars state employers from asking on an initial written employment application whether the applicant has been convicted of a criminal offense. The provision is enforced by the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

As of this month, CORI checks are available online, and the entity that oversees such records for the state has been renamed the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services.

Access to the online system — dubbed iCORI — is available to employers and landlords for a fee. Through the system, employers are able to check for murder, manslaughter and sex offense convictions, felony convictions that occurred within the last decade and misdemeanor convictions in the last five years.

Employers that access criminal records through the system must obtain acknowledgment forms from applicants prior to viewing their criminal history, and they must retain the forms for at least one year. Violations of the recordkeeping regulations are subject to fines of up to $50,000.

The law dictates that employers must limit dissemination of CORI information to employees within the organization on a “need to know basis.” If the records are disseminated outside the organization, the employer must maintain a “secondary dissemination log” that details that information, according to a advisory released by Greenberg Traurig earlier this month.

Employers that conduct five or more criminal background checks a year must adopt and maintain a written policy regarding the use of criminal history information, under the law.

The law also accounts for companies that use third-party vendors to conduct background checks. Employers that do that must adhere to notice and due process procedures if they do not hire someone because of the applicant’s criminal history.

The bill also includes individual access for self-auditing purposes and reduces the waiting periods for sealing records.

Problems on the horizon?

The list of new rules, amendments and requirements “absolutely does increase the risk to employers,” said Michael P. Murphy, an employment and labor associate at Mirick O’Connell in Worcester.

Murphy believes the provisions and the May 4 launch of the online database have the potential to sneak up on small businesses that do not have an in-house human resources department.

“They may not be as sophisticated, and there may be a situation where they get easily slipped up on the written policy under the new statutory requirements,” he said.

McCourt, meanwhile, said there is the potential for legal action by “some type of public interest group if they feel that CORI is not being followed.”

Companies that have not revised their policies and procedures could open themselves up to potential liability, McCourt warned.

The law also applies to employers that do not use the CORI database, something that such companies may not know, he said. Large out-of-state companies that have locations in Massachusetts could be susceptible to oversights as well.

If an employer chooses not to hire an applicant because of his criminal history, that employer must now provide the applicant with the criminal history record, whereas before it only had to give the applicant contact information for a background check company.

“That’s a big change in the law,” McCourt said.

But employment lawyer Ellen J. Messing questioned whether the new provisions will bring an onslaught of litigation from applicants challenging noncompliance of the law.

Messing, of Boston’s Messing, Rudavsky & Weliky, said written applications are less important in the hiring process nowadays. She called the enforcement mechanism for the law “cumbersome” and “unlikely to see a lot of use.”

Messing said the law is simply too complicated for the average applicant to navigate and that most people would not be able to figure out if a company had violated the statute during the application process.

“For John Q. Citizen, there’s not going to be a lot of understanding of what is available and what isn’t available,” she said. “It’s not an intuitive statute, to put it mildly.”

Murphy, however, said job applicants facing challenges posed by their criminal history may be attuned to possible violations by a would-be employer.

“My sense is if you do have a criminal record, [you] may have experience of not getting hired in the past because of it,” Murphy said. “Those types of folks may be more educated on the law.”

Messing acknowledged that “there’s always potential for a pattern and practice claim” when employment law undergoes significant changes.

But noncompliance with the law in the hiring process would not necessarily be a new development, she said.

“There are still companies out there with race … and religious affiliation questions on applications, and these are things that have been illegal for years,” Messing said.

Meanwhile, David E. Belfort of Bennett & Belfort in Cambridge categorized the reform as a positive development intended to give applicants a fair opportunity to respond to their criminal histories after a preliminary inquiry and avoid being excluded because of erroneous information or a record that is incomplete.

“It sort of lets people get past the first hurdle without being automatically excluded as a result of their criminal past or history,” Belfort said.

The federal law governing background checks is more prone to litigation because it requires an individual evaluation as to whether the criminal background check is job-related and consistent with business analysis, Belfort said.

The state’s new rules, he said, do not seem “to create a standard that is subject to as much interpretation.”