6.2 Complaint Intake, Investigation & Informal Conferences
Key Takeaways
- Complaints go to the Executive Director at the Board office, 239 North Lamar Street, Suite 402, Jackson, MS 39201; they should be on Board-approved forms with street address, phone numbers, email, and witness information, and printed forms must be notarized.
- The Board may bring a complaint on its own motion if it can be substantiated; the Executive Director assigns a complaint number and routes the file to a rotating Board-member investigator or, case by case, an external investigator, plus the Board attorney.
- Notice of the filed complaint must be given within a reasonable time from the date of receipt, not to exceed 180 calendar days; official notices to the Accused use certified return receipt mail.
- Once the Accused receives the investigator letter, the Accused has 10 calendar days to respond and may request an extension of up to 30 calendar days, granted case by case.
- Rule 8.7 uses the words informal conference, not settlement conference; it is not an official Board meeting, and a proposed order still goes to the Board for approve, amend, or disapprove.
Why complaint procedure is a Pass/Fail JP topic
Knowing Rule 8.1 grounds does not tell you how a file actually starts. Rule 8.2 is the intake, investigation, and screening path. Rule 8.7 is the pre-sanction informal conference. The open-book exam can ask where a complaint is sent, how long the Accused has to answer, whether the Board can start a case without a private complainant, and what a quorum meeting may do short of a full hearing. Those are clock-and-mailbox questions. They are not clinical-judgment questions.
This OpenExamPrep section is independent study material for the applicant Pass/Fail JP exam. It is not a Board, CCE, NBCC, or ACA publication. A March 4, 2026 Board lunch-and-learn slide deck is useful Board education about what investigators actually mail; where that deck uses different words than Current.pdf, Current.pdf Rule 8.2 and Rule 8.7 control the legal vocabulary for this exam.
Complaints should be submitted to the Executive Director at the Board office. Rule 9.1 and the Board site give the mailing address as 239 North Lamar Street, Suite 402, Jackson, MS 39201 (office 601-359-1010; info@lpc.ms.gov). If needed, the Executive Director shall send the appropriate complaint forms. The complaint should be on the forms approved by the Board. It should include the complainant’s street address, phone numbers, email address, and any other reasonable contact information, plus any witness information. For complaints submitted on the printed forms, the complainant is responsible for completing, notarizing, and returning them to the Board office. The Board may bring a complaint upon its own motion if it can be substantiated as a complaint. A Licensee who thinks “no client signed a form, so nothing can happen” has not read Rule 8.2.A.6.
What the Executive Director and investigator actually do
Upon receipt, the Executive Director will assign a complaint number and enter the matter in the Complaint Log, prepare a file for the original documents, copy them, and send the copy to the Board member assigned the complaint or, at the Board’s direction, an external investigator, and the Board attorney. Complaints shall be assigned among Board members as the Board investigator on a rotating basis. Using an external investigator is a case-by-case Board decision.
The Board member or investigator shall investigate validity, appropriateness, and jurisdiction based on the Code of Ethics, the Rules and Regulations, and the statutes governing Licensees. The investigator shall inform the Accused that a complaint has been filed and that they are under investigation. Notice of the filed complaint shall be given within a reasonable time from the date of receipt of the complaint, not to exceed one hundred eighty (180) calendar days. The investigating Board member or investigator shall notify the counselor of the allegations and the corresponding Code of Ethics, Statutes, and/or Rules and Regulations violations.
That 180-day figure is an outer bound for notice of the filed complaint, counted from date of receipt. It is not a 10-day investigation, and it is not the hearing date. A March 4, 2026 Board lunch-and-learn described the same 180-day figure as the investigator’s deadline to send the Notification Letter. Teach the rule’s words on the exam: reasonable time from receipt, not to exceed 180 calendar days. Do not convert 180 days into a promise that the entire file must be closed by then.
Once the Accused receives the investigator letter, the Accused shall have ten (10) calendar days to respond. The Accused may request an extension, of up to thirty (30) calendar days, to respond. Extensions are granted case by case. Justification for additional time is determined by the assigned Board member or investigator. All official notices to the Accused should be completed using certified return receipt mail. Appropriate documentation should be copied to the Executive Director and the Board attorney. Original mail receipts go to the Board office; investigators keep copies.
The lunch-and-learn sample letter also tells Licensees they may ask for up to 30 days, to mail the response to Suite 402, and that ACA Code I.3 (cooperation with ethics committees) is in view. Failure to respond can become an additional ethics problem. That is Board education sitting on top of Rule 8.2.C.3. It does not replace the 10-day / 30-day numbers in Current.pdf.
Rule 8.2.D screening criteria and the 8.2.E quorum menu
Criteria the investigator can use for whether a charge should be accepted as a formal complaint include, but are not limited to:
- Whether or not the person is a Licensee;
- Whether the charge, if true, would constitute a violation of the Code of Ethics, Rules and Regulations, or the statutes that govern Licensees;
- Whether passage of time since the violation requires that the complaint be rejected;
- Whether relevant, reliable information or proof is available;
- Whether the complainant is willing to provide proof or other information; and
- Whether the charge appears justified or supportable considering the proof available.
Jurisdiction over a Licensee is criterion 1. An HR workplace grievance that would not violate the Code, rules, or statutes can fail criterion 2 even if the story is vivid. Complainant willingness matters (criterion 5), but it is not a private veto that erases Rule 8.2.A.6 Board-initiated complaints. Stale facts can fail criterion 3; missing proof can fail 4 and 6.
The Board shall then conduct a meeting, with a quorum present, to hear a case presented by the assigned Board member or investigator. The assigned case number is used. Only a minimal description of the case should be offered at this juncture. The Board member can recommend that the Board:
- a. Vote to take no action, if no action is merited;
- b. Authorize a disciplinary hearing and initiate a formal complaint and notice of disciplinary hearing;
- c. Issue a non-disciplinary Advisory Letter;
- d. Take other appropriate action, as deemed necessary by the Board; or
- e. Resolution of any formal complaint may be made between the Board and the Accused. The rule’s note says this usually takes the form of an agreed order.
That is the Current.pdf menu. It is not “the Executive Director revokes on the spot,” and it is not “file immediately in circuit court.” A public January 31, 2024 license-search agreed order that later produced an August 27, 2025 reprimand is a real illustration of path e turning into later 3.2.J.7 / 3.2.J.8 charges when the agreed terms were not finished. Do not invent a Rule 8.2 label called a “settlement conference.” The rule’s words for negotiated resolution at this stage are resolution of any formal complaint / agreed order. The separate pre-sanction meeting in Rule 8.7 is an informal conference.
The March 4, 2026 lunch-and-learn listed possible outcomes as dismissal or take no action, a non-disciplinary advisory letter, a consent order approved by the Board, or formal charges or hearing, and it told Licensees they may request an “informal hearing” under Rule 8.7. “Consent order” on a slide and “agreed order” in Rule 8.2.E.3.e are the same family of Board-approved resolutions. “Informal hearing” on that slide is not the Current.pdf caption. Current.pdf Rule 8.7 says informal conference.
Rule 8.7 informal conferences — the actual text
Prior to the imposition of disciplinary sanctions against a license, the licensee may request an informal conference. Informal conferences shall be attended by the Board attorney or designee, the investigating board member, and/or other representatives of the Board as the Chairman and Board attorney may deem necessary. The licensee and/or the licensee’s attorney may attend and shall be provided an opportunity to be heard. The Complainant may also attend and shall be provided an opportunity to be heard regarding charges based upon the information provided. Nothing requires a complainant to attend. Informal conferences are not official meetings of the Board.
A proposed order shall be presented to the Board for review after the conference. The Board shall approve, amend, or disapprove the proposed order. If the Board approves it, the appropriate notation shall be made in the minutes and the proposed order shall be entered as an official action of the Board. If the Board amends the proposed order, the Executive Director shall contact the Licensee, who may concur or reject the amended proposed order. If the Licensee does not concur, or the Board rejects the proposed order, the case shall be scheduled for hearing.
An informal conference is therefore a requested, non-meeting discussion that can produce a proposed order. It is not a secret erasure of the complaint, not a substitute for the 10-day written response, and not a circuit-court appearance. Hearing mechanics, the 30-day hearing notice, sanctions, and appeals are the next section.
JP scenario: the un-notarized email and the ignored certified letter
A Gulfport client emails a narrative to a staffer at CCE Academy in North Carolina and assumes that starts a Mississippi Board case. It does not. Rule 8.2.A sends complaints to the Executive Director at the Board office in Jackson, on Board-approved forms, with contact and witness information; printed forms must be notarized. Meanwhile a Hattiesburg P-LPC, Riley, receives certified return-receipt notice of a filed complaint alleging Rule 8.1.I documentation failures. Riley waits 45 days because “investigations last 180 days so I still have time,” then plans to skip a written response and “settle it at a settlement conference.” The 180-day figure is the outer bound for notice of the filed complaint, which Riley already received. Riley had 10 calendar days to respond, or a case-by-case request for up to 30 calendar days. There is no Rule 8.2 “settlement conference.” Riley may later request a Rule 8.7 informal conference before sanctions, but that conference is not an official Board meeting, and any proposed order still returns to the Board. Ignoring certified mail is how a documentation complaint grows a cooperation problem.
After a Mississippi LPC Accused receives the investigating Board member’s or investigator’s letter, how long does Rule 8.2 give to respond, and what extension exists?
Rule 8.2.C.2 sets which outer bound for telling the Accused that a complaint has been filed?
At a Board meeting with a quorum present, which recommendation menu does Current.pdf Rule 8.2.E.3 actually give the assigned Board member?