The letter says Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation across the top. You have read it three times trying to work out how bad this is.
IDFPR issued your license. It is also the agency that can take it away. Both jobs sit under one roof, which is why a complaint from a patient, a client, or a former boss carries the weight it does.
This page covers what the Department is, what it can do, and what happens at each stage. For how we defend these cases, see our professional license defense page.
IDFPR is the Illinois agency that licenses and disciplines professionals, and it can reprimand you, place you on probation, suspend your license, revoke it, or refuse to renew it. Before it does any of that, you are owed written notice and a hearing. Once a final decision is served, you have 35 days to take it to Circuit Court.
Sources: 20 ILCS 2105/2105-15 (opens in a new tab), 5 ILCS 100/10-65 (opens in a new tab), 735 ILCS 5/3-103 (opens in a new tab).
The Department runs four divisions. Professional licenses sit with the Division of Professional Regulation, and that is where a complaint about you (opens in a new tab) is filed. The others cover banking, financial institutions, and real estate.
Under 20 ILCS 2105/2105-15, IDFPR sets the exams, decides who is qualified, writes the rules, holds the hearings, and imposes the discipline. The same body makes the rule and judges whether you broke it, with a mandate to protect the public rather than to be fair to you.
The statute lets IDFPR revoke a license, suspend it, refuse to renew it, or put it on probation. Your profession’s own practice act fills in the rest.
| Action | What It Means | Can You Work |
|---|---|---|
| Nondisciplinary resolution | The matter closes with nothing on your record. | Yes. |
| Reprimand | Discipline becomes part of your public record. | Yes. |
| Probation | You practice under conditions and monitoring. | Yes, with conditions. |
| Suspension | Your license is out of service for a set period. | No. |
| Refusal to renew | The Department declines to renew at term end. | No, once it lapses. |
| Revocation | The license is gone. | No. |
Revocation carries a tail that surprises people. With narrow exceptions, you cannot even apply to have a revoked license restored until three years after it takes effect.
The gap that matters most is between probation and suspension, because it decides whether you keep working while the case runs.
This is the part most people do not know, and it is why panic is the wrong first move.
Under 5 ILCS 100/10-65(d), no state agency may revoke, suspend, materially amend, or refuse to renew a valid license without doing two things first. It has to give you written notice of the facts and conduct it intends to rely on, and it has to offer you a hearing.
At that hearing you can show that you meet every lawful requirement for keeping it.
There is one exception. If the Department finds that public safety imperatively requires emergency action, and writes that finding into its order, it can suspend a license while revocation proceedings go forward. Those proceedings have to move promptly.
One more point worth knowing. If your renewal falls due in the middle of this, a timely renewal application keeps your current license in effect until the agency reaches its final decision.
A few situations bypass notice and hearing entirely, and they catch people never accused of anything in their practice.
The fix is to clear the underlying matter and have that agency notify IDFPR. Sixty days is short, and it runs whether or not you opened the envelope.
Six stages from complaint to courtroom, and what is still in your hands at each one.
Stage four is where these cases are really decided. Going in without an attorney is the most expensive choice in the process, because what you agree to there is what the Director signs.
See 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1110.80 (opens in a new tab) for the rules on negotiations, agreed dispositions, and conference confidentiality.
A final IDFPR decision becomes the end of the matter fast if you wait.
Under the Administrative Review Law you have to file a complaint and have summons issued within 35 days after a copy of the decision was served on you. Filing alone is not enough. Both have to happen inside the window.
The clock runs from service, not from the day you opened the mail. Miss it and the decision stands, whatever its merits were. That window is the last door in the process, not the first.
A conviction can put your license at risk even when the offense had nothing to do with your work. For certain health care offenses, Illinois makes the action mandatory rather than discretionary.
When both are live they have to be run together. An admission in one becomes evidence in the other, and the order they resolve in changes your options. We handle the criminal defense side too, including DUI and drug charges.
Failing to report a charge when your practice act requires it is its own violation, and it often does more damage than the case behind it.
Most IDFPR work happens in writing and in conferences, not in a courtroom. We handle it for licensees across Chicago, Cook County, and the collar counties. The Department’s Chicago office is on West Monroe Street.
The one stage that does go to court is administrative review. In Cook County that is the Circuit Court at the Daley Center.
Discipline is public. IDFPR posts its enforcement actions (opens in a new tab) with the date and a short synopsis, and it shows on a license lookup after that. That alone makes closing a matter early worth real effort.
By the time you hear from IDFPR, the file is already being built. What is still open is what the Department hears from you, and when.
Tell us what the letter says and whether you have spoken to anyone yet. We will walk you through what the Department has to show, the realistic range of outcomes for your profession, and what the next 30 days should hold.
Call Ktenas Law at (312) 800-1626 or request a case review. Conversations with us are confidential.
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Its Division of Professional Regulation licenses and disciplines professionals statewide. Three other divisions handle banking, financial institutions, and real estate.
You are not required to give a statement on the spot, and asking to speak with a lawyer first is not an admission of anything. Investigators reach the licensee last, so the conversation is rarely the neutral fact finding it is presented as.
In most cases, no. A valid license cannot be suspended, revoked, or materially changed without written notice and an offer of a hearing. The exceptions are an emergency suspension where the Department finds public safety imperatively requires it, and certifications about taxes, workers compensation, or child support.
35 days from the date the decision was served on you. You have to file a complaint and have summons issued inside that window, not just file. The clock runs from service, not from when you read it.
You, your attorney, and a Department attorney, often with a board member present, talk through how the case could resolve before any formal complaint is filed. Statements made there are confidential and cannot be used in the proceeding if no agreement is reached.
Yes. The Department publishes its enforcement actions with the date and a brief synopsis, and discipline shows on a license lookup. That is one reason closing a matter at the conference stage is worth fighting for.
Sometimes, but not soon. With narrow exceptions, you cannot apply for restoration until three years after the revocation took effect. Restoration is a petition, and it turns on compliance with the original order and fitness to return. Our license defense page covers it.
No. A charge or conviction can trigger review on its own, and for certain health care offenses Illinois makes the licensing action mandatory. If you are facing both, our criminal defense team handles them together, because the timing of one shapes the other.
This page is general information about Illinois licensing law and is not legal advice. The deadlines and grounds that apply to you depend on your profession’s own practice act and on how your case reached the Department. Speak with an attorney about your situation.
