Services Provided by a Registered Legal Nurse Consultant

Author: George Martin

Legal consultants (LNC) have a wide scope of employment. They work with a number of organizations including hospitals, government agencies, law firms, insurance companies and other private organizations. They apply their understanding and knowledge of nursing, health-related issues and medical experience to make an attorney’s job easier. Most of the law firms employ them with high remuneration, because LNCs are highly efficient and effective in assisting a medical litigation.

Who can become an LNC?

Any registered nurse with some years of experience can become an LNC. He/she should have knowledge regarding medical records, health care issues and the law. Today, many schools provide legal nurse consulting programs, but they are not really effective. One can simply read some books at home to learn more about the trials, witness, cases involving negligence, malpractice, injury and writing case reports.

LNCs have firsthand knowledge regarding healthcare systems, reports and records. They know the inner workings of the complicated healthcare system. Their professional expertise helps them to provide the following services:

  • Analyzing medical malpractice cases and evaluating records
  • Working as an important weapon of an attorney
  • Dealing with witnesses and experts
  • Preparation for court

Let’s have a look in detail.

Analyzing medical malpractice cases and evaluating records:

  • They help in identifying, locating and interpreting relevant medical records. They convey hospital policies, working procedures and documentation practices.
  • They present medical events chronologically and paginate the records for easy reference.
  • They identify issues of tampering after summarizing, translating and interpreting the records.
  • They know applicable standards of care, so they can help screening malpractice cases for merit and instances of deviations from a particular standard.
  • Identifying contributing factors of an injury and potential defendants.

Working as an important weapon:

  • LNCs are a secret and an important weapon of attorneys working in medical litigation. LNCs can search and summarize the nursing literature and provide the results of a case analysis.
  • They can analyze the validity of research studies entrusted by all parties.
  • They attend and coordinate medical examinations, develop lifecare plans and expand their attorney’s medical library.

Dealing with witnesses and experts:

  • Finding experts for the case, communicating with them for deposition and trial.
  • Analyzing the expert reports and products.
  • Preparing witnesses and experts for trial. Where needed, he/she himself serves as an expert witness.

Preparation for Court:

  • Preparing direct or cross questions for trial.
  • Preparing requests and interrogatories.
  • Drafting responses to different documents and correspondence for the attorney’s signature.
  • Analyzing past testimony and assisting the attorney with preparing demonstrative evidences.
  • Coordinate mock trials and attend court proceedings.
  • Assisting in arbitration and mediation.

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