State Licensing Board Complaint
You got a letter from the Licensing Board in your state. Now, what? You certainly can answer the complaint on your own, but that is not advisable. You may inadvertently get yourself into more trouble by stating something you did not intend to say or that is interpreted incorrectly. If you are an NASW RRG policyholder, you should contact the NASW RRG Helpline immediately and ask for an Incident Report Form and send the Board letter with the form as directed by the NASW RRG which shall assign a licensed attorney in your state for your defense. If you are not a policyholder with the NASW RRG, you should contact an attorney.
Your former client is angry with you and is threatening to file a complaint against you. Is there anything you can do to stop it? No. People have a right to file a complaint against you if they feel you hurt them in some way. As noted above, you can either answer the complaint yourself or, if you are an NASW RRG policyholder, contact the NASW RRG Helpline to arrange for legal counsel to be assigned to you. In the meantime, do not agonize over what has not happened yet. Prospectively consider the facts as they arrive in the board complaint.
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A free service for NASW RRG policyholders, the Helpline is available for questions regarding a variety of practice interactions, risk mitigation, and general guidance. The most frequent categories of Helpline questions fall within the following categories: