Sacramento Professional Licensing Defense Lawyer – License Denied

If you are reading this, there is a good chance you have had a professional license (such as a nursing license, teaching credential, medical license, state bar license, brokers license, insurance license, therapists license, psychology license, contractors license, etc…) denied perhaps because of a past indiscretion such as a criminal conviction.

If your professional license has been denied, you have a couple of options. (Before discussing these options I want to emphasize that you should contact a Sacramento professional licensing defense lawyer like me (Jonathan Turner) to discuss your options in detail.)

The first option is to simply accept the denial and re-apply for the license in the future. Most California Professional Licensing Agencies (such as the Board of Registered Nursing, Board of Behavioral Sciences, Department of Social Services, Board of Vocational Nursing, Commission on Teacher Credentialing, Department of Insurance, and Department of Real Estate) will allow you to re-apply for a denied license in the future (usually in 1 to 3 years). However, there is a good chance that the license will be denied again when you re-apply in the future.

The second option is to request an administrative hearing to challenge the denial. Note, you have only a limited amount of time following notice of the denial (usually 30 days or so) to request the administrative hearing. It is vital that at this stage of the process you retain an attorney like Sacramento, California Professional Licensing Attorney Jonathan Turner to represent you in these complex proceedings. (Of course, it is a good idea to have an attorney representing you during the initial application process even before the license is denied.) As your attorney, Sacramento, California Nursing License Attorney Jonathan Turner can request the administrative hearing for you – his client. Thereafter, a Statement of Issues is generated by the licensing agency or board. The Statement of Issues details the reasons why the agency is denying the professional license. Once the Statement of Issues is received, Sacramento, California Teacher Credentialing Attorney Jonathan Turner will respond with a Notice of Defense and Request for Discovery. These are technical documents and should not be generated by a lay person without legal experience.

Thereafter, the matter is set for an administrative hearing at one of California’s several offices of administrative hearings. It may be possible for Sacramento, California administrative law attorney Turner to request a settlement conference to occur in advance of the hearing. At the settlement conference it may be possible for the parties to reach a resolution of the case that allows the client to get their license without going through with the administrative hearing. If not, an administrative hearing will occur before an administrative law judge. Such proceedings are similar to court trials though they have their own unique laws (administrative law) found mostly within the California Government Code. Following the hearing, usually within 90 days, the administrative law judge issues a decision.

The licensing board may adopt that decision or reject it. If the license applicant is unhappy with the final decision, they may appeal it in the form of an administrative writ of mandate under California Code of Civil Procedure 1094.5. Sacramento professional licensing defense lawyer Jonathan Turner has vast experience in handling writs of mandate as well.