Helene Kleinfeld
Attorney and sole practitioner
I represent licensed professionals before their boards. Every call, every draft and every hearing is mine; there is no associate to hand you to.
The Fourteenth Amendment
“…nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
A professional license is property, in the way the law counts it. It took years to earn, and a letter can put it at risk.
Before a board suspends or revokes one, it owes you notice, a chance to answer and a hearing that follows rules. Most people use none of it. The first letter arrives, they feel they must explain themselves at once, and the explanation they write becomes the board's case.
I read that letter with you first. I represent nurses, physicians and other licensed professionals before their boards, one client at a time.
Helene Kleinfeld
Attorney and sole practitioner
Before you answer
The first reply is the one the board keeps.
A board reads your answer as testimony. Whatever you write in the first week, in good faith and in a hurry, is quoted back to you in the last.
Until we have spoken
- Keep the letter, its envelope and the date it sets.
- Don't call the investigator or the person who complained.
- Don't change, add to or tidy any record.
- Don't talk it over with coworkers or on a work phone.
None of this is an admission. It is what a careful person does before the story is written.