Professional License Defense
Collin County & Statewide
A criminal charge, a patient or client complaint, or a workplace incident can put your license on the line, sometimes on a faster clock than any court case, no matter where in Texas you live or work.
A license is often worth more than any single case outcome — it’s your ability to keep working in your field at all. O’Toole Law, PLLC is a Collin County-based firm representing nurses, real estate professionals, educators, medical licensees, and attorneys facing complaints or disciplinary action before their Texas licensing board or the State Bar of Texas — regardless of where in Texas that board proceeding happens to fall, since these are state-level matters, not county ones. It’s also an area few Collin County attorneys focus on directly, more often treated as an afterthought to a criminal case than as its own practice. Founded by Jon O’Toole, a former prosecutor who has practiced in North Texas since 2007 and served on a State Bar of Texas Grievance Committee, O’Toole Law applies the same disciplined, capacity-limited approach here as to any criminal matter: full attorney preparation, direct communication, and a strategy built around your specific board, your specific complaint, and what’s actually at stake for your career.
Texas Board of Nursing (BON)
Complaints against RNs, LVNs, and APRNs can come from an employer, a patient, a co-worker, or the Board itself, and can be triggered by anything from a documentation error to a criminal charge unrelated to patient care. The Board can investigate, require a personal appearance, or move toward formal discipline — and a pending criminal case doesn’t pause that process.
State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC)
Texas educators face a specific reporting obligation most other license-holders don’t: certain arrests and charges must be reported to SBEC within a defined window, separate from anything happening in the criminal case itself. Missing that window can create problems independent of the underlying charge.
Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC)
A complaint to TREC can come from a client, a buyer or seller on the other side of a transaction, or another licensee, and can involve anything from a paperwork dispute to a criminal allegation. Like educators, real estate license holders also carry their own notice obligation — certain criminal matters must be reported to TREC within a defined window, separate from the criminal case itself, and missing that window can create problems independent of the underlying charge.
Texas Medical Board (TMB)
Complaints against physicians and other Board-regulated medical licensees can arise from a patient complaint, a hospital peer-review referral, or a criminal matter, and Board proceedings carry their own investigative process, timeline, and potential outcomes — separate from any parallel criminal case.
State Bar of Texas (Grievance Process)
A grievance against a Texas attorney can come from a client, an opposing party, a judge, or another lawyer, and can involve anything from a communication or fee dispute to a criminal matter. Grievances move through the State Bar’s own disciplinary process, with its own deadlines and procedures, separate from any civil or criminal case that may be pending.
A Collin County Attorney, A Statewide Practice Area
These board proceedings don’t happen in a county courthouse — they happen at the state level, which means a Collin County base doesn’t limit who this practice can serve. It’s also, by design, a deliberate move into a corner of Texas legal practice that most local criminal defense firms don’t build out: a license-holder facing a board complaint often has fewer local options to call than someone facing a criminal charge does, even though what’s at stake — the ability to keep working in their field — can matter just as much.
One Deliberately Limited Caseload, Two Kinds of Stakes
The same discipline that shapes every criminal case at O’Toole Law applies here: your matter gets full attorney preparation, not a rushed response squeezed between higher-priority files.
Direct Access to Your Attorney
You work directly with Jon O’Toole on your board matter, not a paralegal or case manager — the same as every other matter the firm handles.
Coordinated, Not Siloed
When a license matter and a criminal case are connected, they’re handled with an eye to how each affects the other, rather than as two disconnected problems.
Frequently Asked Questions
Not automatically, but the two can move independently and on different timelines. Some license types carry a specific reporting obligation triggered by an arrest or charge; others depend on whether the board becomes aware through another channel. Either way, a criminal case resolving favorably doesn’t by itself end a board inquiry that’s already started.
That depends on the situation, but having one attorney aware of both matters — rather than two attorneys working in isolation — generally allows the strategy in one to account for the other.
Licensing boards generally have authority to proceed, and potentially take action, whether or not the license-holder responds. Not responding does not make the matter go away.
In some circumstances, yes — several Texas boards have mechanisms for interim or emergency action in serious cases, separate from a full hearing process. The specifics vary by board.