The Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation (DLLR) has recently added a new search page to its website that allows users to access licensing information for all of the State's Occupational and Professional Boards and Commissions by licensee surname. The DLLR Boards & Commissions Public Query page contains license information for all 22 occupational and professional licensing boards, commissions and programs administered by the agency. When the user enters either a whole or partial last name into the search field, the results page will display every individual by that name with an active Maryland license, along with the license number, type of license, expiration date and license category, if applicable.

Previously, the public would have to visit each board's individual webpage in order to find out if an individual held a valid State license. The new search feature is much more user-friendly and saves on research time. Presently, the query page will only display results for individuals who hold occupational or professional licenses. Other types of licenses, like those administered by DLLR's Division of Financial Regulation, are not covered by it. Below is a list of the occupational and professional boards that are included in the public query search:

Effective October 1, 2015, a change in the law gives the Architects, Surveyors, and Landscape Architects Boards the authority to take disciplinary actions against firms that do not comply with the statutory requirements of obtaining a firm permit. In addition, the new law requires firms to designate an applicable licensee to be the responsible member in charge of services offered by the firm.

If you have questions, please call the Board's office at 410-230-6262. Changes are being made to the existing permit applications as appropriate. You can read the full text of the law online.

Have you ever looked at a set of plans and questioned whether the person who signed and sealed them had the authority to do so? Certain projects are within the scope of two or more design-related licenses, so the question comes up fairly often within the design community.

Questions about overlapping practice between architects, landscape architects, engineers, land surveyors and certified interior designers are often answered by the Joint Chairs Group of the five State Design Boards. The Group was created in 2003 to address matters of mutual importance to the design professions. The Chairs of the Boards deliver opinions based on a thorough knowledge of State law and regulations regarding the purview of each profession.

Answers to questions about the scope of each license can be found on the Joint Chairs section of the DLLR website. A comprehensive Overlapping Practice Guide is available to download, as well as documentation of individual decisions rendered by the Group.

The Board for Professional Engineers has launched a new online complaint form for filing complaints against licensed professional engineers. To file a complaint, simply enter your information into all of the required fields on the form. You will receive a confirmation email acknowledging receipt, as well as additional instructions on how to proceed. A complaint number is assigned at the time of submission. Please use that number in all future correspondence about your complaint.

Please note that all complaints submitted to the Board are considered public record under State law. All non-confidential information may be disclosed under Maryland's Public Information Act. Therefore, anonymous complaints cannot be accepted by the Board. Also, the Board only has the authority to investigate complaints that involve allegations of unethical conduct, incompetence, unlicensed practice, and misrepresentation. The Board has no jurisdiction over contractual disputes including payment and non-performance. Those matters are best handled with a private attorney.

In the 2013 session of the Maryland General Assembly, the State enacted a law requiring licensed landscape architects to complete continuing professional competency (CPC) requirements as a condition of license renewal.

As you may be aware, the Board, together with the representatives of the Maryland Chapter of American Society of Landscape Architects, educational community, and other stakeholders, has been working on the regulations that the Board is required by law to adopt. The law also requires licensees whose licenses expire between October 1, 2015, and September 30, 2016, to complete at least 12 hours of professional development activities. While the regulations are not yet fully developed, please note that you still have to comply with this requirement.

We understand that you may have questions relating to both the types of activities and the types of providers that may be acceptable for the purpose of complying with the continuing competency requirements. In the absence of promulgated regulations at this juncture, the Board cannot provide you with definitive answers. However, based on the criteria set forth in similar continuing competency regulations promulgated by other Maryland design boards, professional development activities must offer learning experiences relevant to current landscape architectural practices as they relate to public safety, health, and welfare, and be approved and accepted for credit by the national, regional, or State landscape architectural organizations or academic institutions.

Please check the CPC section of the Board's website for further updates.

Since Maryland is one of 17 remaining U.S. jurisdictions that do not require a degree from a National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) accredited program to become a licensed architect, the path to licensure can be a winding one for some candidates. The Board of Architects evaluates applicants based on several sets of criteria outside of the generally accepted NAAB-accredited degree plus enrollment in the Intern Development Program (IDP). As a general rule, to qualify to take the Architectural Registration ExaminationŽ (AREŽ), candidates must possess five education credits (earned either by possession of a degree from a NAAB-accredited college, by a combination of education and qualifying work experience, or by documenting 10 years of work experience), and must be enrolled in or have completed the IDP.

Candidates for the AREŽ and for licensure who do not possess a NAAB-accredited degree, or who do not have a degree in higher education can refer to the following chart to gauge where they are in the process of being ready to apply. Find your level of education in the left hand column, and the right hand column will show you how many years of work experience you can use to make up the total education credits needed to qualify.

On July 1, 2015, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) began the first phase of streamlining the Intern Development Program (IDP). The organization plans to implement the process in two phases. The first phase, beginning July 1, dropped the 1,860 elective hours that were previously part of the IDP program, leaving a core program of 3,740 hours in the 17 required core experience areas. NCARB expects that dropping the elective hours will shorten the typical path after graduation to obtaining licensure from more than seven years down to five or six.

NCARB proposes to begin the second phase of streamlining the IDP program in mid to late 2016. All changes must first be approved by member boards of architecture, but NCARB plans to completely overhaul the program at that time. They have identified six experience categories in which interns will document hours, as opposed to the current four experience categories and 17 experience areas. The six categories will align with the six divisions of the new Architect Registration ExaminationŽ (AREŽ) 5.0, set to launch in late 2016. The six categories they have identified are practice management, project management, programming & analysis, project planning & design, project development & documentation, and construction & evaluation.

Exam candidates for the AREŽ can now visit NCARB's website to get updated information on how the transition from ARE 4.0 to ARE 5.0 will affect their individual testing schedules. NCARB has posted details of the transition, including a link to subscribe to updates via email in its ARE 5.0 section of the website.

The new exam is set to launch late next year, and is expected to align more closely with the regular, day-to-day practice of architecture than the current ARE 4.0. The format will change to be six divisions instead of four, and each division will be taken as a separate, standalone test. NCARB assures that current candidates who began testing in the ARE 4.0 format will retain credit for those sections in the ARE 5.0 format.