received discouragement from attorneys office today re: LNC

[gorgemom]

So, I made a call to a medical malpractice attorney's office today for a family member and as I was talking with one of their staff members I mentioned that I was working on becoming a legal nurse consultant. I am not sure if this staff member was a para legal or legal secretary or what, but she was more than just an administrative assistant. Anyway she began asking me a lot of questions regarding my nursing experience and what exactly I would be doing as a LNC. I gave her a few scenarios and she began telling me how her office receives solicitation from others in this field telling them how their office could benefit from such services and she said their office would never hire such a person.

She said that someone going over the medical charts/records etc. would also need to be able to be an expert witness, BUT they would not want to hire an expert witness that was not currently working on the clinical side of nursing as well. However she also contradicted herself by saying that the nurses that they have used were too busy with working in the clinical side to be able to give them the time they needed.

She was pretty depressing, making it sound like this was a service no one would want to use. I am not sure if she felt that her position would be threatened by such a person or what?

Can anyone else tell me what they think about this? I wasn't quite sure how to respond.

[sirI, MSN, APRN, NP]

That's just one office out of a multitude of others. And, you may be correct in that she was protecting her turf.

Don't let one negative undo the positives.

Forge onward and good luck.

[nobhill]

Well, I am an attorney going into nursing and I have a different opinion. I think your skills would be very useful, but you need to get to know the people who will make the decisions in the firms. The person was not one of them and was probably threatened, since you know more.

Have you joined the professional association for nurse consultants? I hear that there are a number of useful resources available to members to help you target potential clients. Also, the areas where nurse consulstants would be extremely helpful is in personal injury or wrongful death cases, other than medical malpractice. Sometimes lawyers just need someone to review a file and explain what really happened or what should have happened. There are many small firm and solo practitioner lawyers who do this and could use your services. They may not hire you as an expert, but you would be working with them to understand their case, and getting paid well.

IMHO, if the lawyer was in a state where medical malpractice case damages were not limited [like they are in CA], I would think haveing someone like you on staff would be a tremendous resource.

How do you meet the lawyers who will hire you? I would join the trial lawyer bars [trial lawyers are the lawyers representing plaintiffs] and attend their networking events, go to their cocktail parties, and get to know people.

Here are some links:

www.justice.org is The American Association for Justice, the national trial lawyers organization.

www.caoc.org is the California trial lawyers organization.

www.publicjustice.net is a public interest law firm and foundation made up of top partners from plaintiffs firms all over the country. Joining this group will enable you to get to know the decisionmakers at a number of different firms all over the country.

Check out the websites and see what interests you. Don't let the gatekeeper turn you away.

Good luck,

Nobhill

[gorgemom]

Thank you BOTH so much for your responses! Just entering this field I am still unsure of the demand out there and what I will really be doing.

Nobhill: I appreciate your view point and it helps to know that the opinion I heard yesterday was probably isolated or at the very least biased. Thank you also for all of the great pointers! I am going to save your response and reference it in the future! Good luck with your nursing pursuits. It is a very rewarding field to be a part of!