If you are a licensed professional and have been arrested for a crime, your license to practice may be on the line. Without your license, you will lose the career you have worked so hard to build.
Whether you are a doctor, nurse, dentist or another licensed professional, you must act quickly, both to address the criminal charge and the threat to your license. The sooner you act, the better chance you have at resolving both problems in a positive manner.
How to respond to the licensing board
You must cooperate with investigators and respond to communication. However, you should not respond either orally or in writing before you talk with a lawyer. Even simple answers to seemingly harmless questions can hurt your case. Instead, decline to answer and then ask for the investigator's name and number.
Avoiding negative consequences
Perhaps your charge involves a crime unrelated to your job, such as driving under the influence, so you do not think your professional license is at risk for revocation. Or if the allegations involve alleged malpractice, you may believe you did nothing wrong and have nothing to fear. However, the threat to your license is real. Therefore, the next step is to call an attorney with experience in defending professional licenses. Your attorney can review your situation and respond in an appropriate manner.
The importance of legal representation
Every Tennessee licensing board has its own set of procedures and rules. In addition, the circumstances of every case are unique. For these reasons, when it comes to dealing with the licensing board, you should not rely on what you read on the internet or what you have heard from your colleagues or professionals in other fields. Nor should you make the mistake of responding to the licensing board without legal advice. Your best course of action is to obtain counsel from an experienced professional license defense attorney.
