Please remove your mind from the sewer!
How do you know who is the "right" attorney to represent you before the State Nursing Board? Do you just flip a coin and hope for the best? Are you looking for a warm and fuzzy feeling from the attorney?
My suggestion would be to research the attorney and the law firm and make an educated decision on how to proceed. You may also want to speak with the attorney at length or in-person to further discuss your case.
If you call my office and you "slam" your previous or current "license defense attorney" chances are (9/10), I am not going to represent you. Why? Because you are probably going to slam me in the future also. Also there is 3 sides to every story (the truth being usually somewhere in the middle of two extremes) and you are providing me with just your story.
Please do not call my office and say your previous or current attorney "f*cked up your case" because I do not or will not have a response. Okay, I will have a response; I may chuckle at your candor or may say "okaaaaaaaaay" or "wow" because I am abstaining from profanity professionally and personally.
When I work with an attorney and I have several who counsel and advise me in personal as well as professional matters, I always tell my lawyers to "give it to me hard" and to provide me with the worst case scenario and the best case scenario. If I want my hand-held, I can call one of my best girl friends; I do not want my lawyers to hold my hand. Most lawyers have cold hands anyway; no pulse. Just kidding!
I am a counselor at law (baby) not a professional counselor or licensed mental health, marital, or chemical dependency counselor or counselor assistant; although I certainly feel, express, show, and have empathy, sympathy, and compassion for my clients, prospective clients, or any tespondent in a State Nursing Board case.
I don't sugar coat my representation, counseling, and advising of RNs, LPNs, APRNs, nursing students, and NCLEX-Applicants and I don't want an attorney assisting me sugar-coating my situation, case, or circumstances. If I want to be placated, I can call my maternal or paternal grandmothers. They will certainly tell me "it is going to be okay" and you are still grandma's good girl.
Defending nurses requires sometimes that you tell folks, "this is ugly" and this is what we are looking at with the State Nursing Board. Sometimes I have to tell nursing students, nursing is not for you, IMO, based on your criminal convictions because what employer is really going to hire you even if you manage to get through the background check for admission to nursing school and for entry to clinical sites.
Sometimes, I have to tell nurses who are renewing their license to "buckle their seat-belt because the road is going to be bumpy for a while." This is my job and my role as a nurse license defense attorney.
If you want to hear you are wonderful, you followed all the policies and procedures as well as all of the nursing practice standards with your actions or inactions, you have the "perfect" nursing practice, you are the "best" nurse you can and ever will be right now, and there is "nothing" you could have done differently under the circumstances in the incident leading to your State Nursing Board complaint, then you probably should not retain me.
You do not want an attorney to cuddle you, do you? You don't want a lawyer to slap your face with your case file but you do not want the other extreme either, do you? I am sorry (no, I am not but I like to say I am sorry now because it makes me feel good) but I don't tell you what you want hear; we are not married.
As a licensed attorney, I have ethical and legal obligations in the attorney-client relationship and most importantly I have to be true to my calling in Christ. Being true means giving my objective, gut, honest, and researched assessment and review of case and sometimes, a lot of times, it may be difficult for a client to accept depending on the facts of the case.
For example:
1. You are looking a suspension of your license in this state;
2. You are more than likely looking at probation and monitoring with employment restrictions;
3. You are looking at Board monitoring in an alternative program or in a disciplinary program;
4. You committed a crime and probably will be charged and subsequently indicted for one or more felonies;
5. You are looking at permanent practice restrictions in Ohio more than likely because; or
6. You are looking at a permanent revocation of your nursing license in Ohio.
There is always a but, however, maybe, or moreover and THIS is why you need to retain an attorney to counsel and advise you on realistically what are your options with respect to nursing career.
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