Professional & Occupational Licensing & Discipline

The Woodring Law Firm, located in Tallahassee where most of the state agencies have their headquarters, is well positioned to handle Florida administrative law cases,(chapter 120 cases) for individuals and businesses located all over the state. Mr. Woodring has extensive experience with most areas of administrative law, including: challenges to proposed rules and rulemaking procedures; unpromulgated rule challenges; statements of estimated regulatory cost (SERC); administrative hearings before the Department of Administrative Hearings (DOAH); professional and occupational licensing cases; State procurements and bid protests.

He has worked on administrative matters involving the Department of Education (DOE); Department of Management Services(DMS); Executive Office of the Governor(EOG); Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR); Department of Financial Services (DFS); Department of Children and Families (DCF); Department of Health (DOH); Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA); Department of Environmental Protection ( DEP); Department of Elder Affairs; Secretary of State; Agency for Workforce Innovation (AWI.)

When You Should Consider Hiring an Administrative Attorney

There are four basic situations in which you may want to retain an attorney to handle administrative law matters for you.

Rulemaking

First, you should consider hiring an administrative attorney if any agency is considering adopting or proposing a rule that would have an impact on you or your business. Unless there is a specific statutory requirement, agencies do much of their regulatory business by means of adopting rules. You will have an opportunity to help shape a rule if you become engaged when an agency is considering a rule that might have a significant impact on you or your business.

Challenges to Proposed or Existing Rules, or Waivers or Variances

You also should consider retaining an attorney if there is an existing agency rule that you believe you have a basis to challenge. Some of the traditional grounds for challenging an agency rule are that the rule exceeds specific statutory authority, is arbitrary and capricious, vests unbridled discretion in an agency, or does not establish clear standards. Even if there may not be a basis to challenge the rule sometimes there are grounds to request a waiver or variance in the application of the rule to your situation.

State Procurements and Bid Protests

If you are involved in obtaining and negotiating contracts for goods or services with State agencies, you should consider retaining an administrative attorney who has experience with the various means of Florida procurements, such as invitations to bid (ITB); request for quotes(RFQ); State term contracts; invitations to negotiate (ITN); and request for proposals (RFP). Attorneys are often obtained once an agency has done a notice of intent to award and the vendor is then considering initiating a bid protest. In many situations, it may be too late to help a vendor be in the best position to win a competitive procurement, once the agency has already announced its notice of intent to award. Please go to our page on state procurements and protests for more information on this.

Professional and Occupational Licensing and Discipline

The other common situation in which you should often consider hiring an administrative attorney is an agency is proposing to take disciplinary action against a professional or occupational license that you hold, or has denied your application for an occupational or disciplinary license. Depending on whether there are material facts in dispute, you may wish to defend your license in an administrative hearing, often before the division of administrative hearings, or may wish to defend your license by appearing before the governing body or board assigned to your profession.

Please contact us if you believe that we could be of assistance to you in any Florida administrative law matter. Keep in mind that administrative law guidelines are often very short, so you do not want to delay seeking counsel.