attorney-client

At least once a day I hear someone say, “When I lose that 10 pounds I’ll be happy” or “When I get one more attorney-client for my legal nurse consulting business I’ll be happy” or “I’ll be really happy when my husband finally cleans out the garage.” Seeking happiness or anything else we desire outside of where we are now, or making our happiness dependent upon some extraordinary incident occurring, pins those expectations on the future.

The problem with that mindset is we don’t live in the future we live in the now, simple ordinary times filled with simple ordinary events. Sometimes extraordinary incidents (like being the CLNC^® consultant involved in a $20 million verdict) will happen, but those moments pass and their resulting happiness will pass too. It’s in this very moment that we must find our happiness, in our day to day living, such as interacting with a CLNC^® subcontractor or doing the research on a case.

Life isn’t a journey to happiness; it’s a journey in happiness. Some of the career benefits of becoming a CLNC^® consultant are being able to set your own hours and have more time with your family. It’s within those extra hours that you’ll find plenty of opportunities to experience the happiness you deserve: the sound of your children laughing, working really hard on a challenging case for your favorite attorney-client or simply prepping dinner.

Certainly extraordinary incidents will bring you joy, but on a daily basis you’re more likely to experience an ordinary one. Take a moment to enjoy them now. For the moment, this moment is all you’ve got.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share what you’re finding joy in right now.

I’ll be the first to admit it feels good to be right. There’s a comfort, if not outright confidence, in that moral certitude that comes from knowing you are correct in a situation. Recently a vendor and I disagreed over a matter that was objectively verifiable and I knew I was right. It took some effort on my part, but he finally agreed with me.

But when you’re in a relationship, whether it’s business or personal, being right rarely ends with being right. That’s because no one likes to feel that they’re wrong. When you’re right, there’s a right way and a wrong way to be right and a right way to respond when another person has to admit you’re the one who’s right. For example, while it may feel satisfying, annihilating the person or crushing him with the correctness of your position (as I admit I wanted to do in the above situation) is just not an option. And while it can be tough, a certain grace goes a long way if you want to get along with that person in the future.

The next time you’re right in your legal nurse consulting business, take a moment to consider the impact of how you communicate that fact to your attorney-client, subcontractor or MD expert. I’m not suggesting you back down, just that you tone it down and maintain a composed, confident demeanor. Your relationships are much more important than feeling good about being right – though you can still be right at the same time.

Success Is Inside!

I was referred to an attorney by a medical testifying expert I know. Because of that referral, I got right through to the attorney and thought “this is going to be easy.” I couldn’t have been more wrong. After briefly discussing my CLNC^® services, he responded “I have been doing this for 35 years myself.” I acknowledged his expertise as the attorney and then proceeded to explain how I could save him time and money by screening his cases first before he sent them to expensive MD experts. He didn’t bite.

Not one to give up, I next offered to send him a sample of my work product. He agreed. A week later, I called him to follow up. He was very complimentary of my work product but still didn’t hire me for a case.

I decided to focus on something specific to get his attention, so I mentioned that I frequently attend independent medical exams (IME) for attorneys. I shared that attorneys appreciate my ability to point out inadequacies in the exam. Finally, I got his attention.

Three days later, the attorney contacted me and requested that I attend an IME. I did so, and he was impressed by my evaluation and the things I pointed out that the MD did not do during the IME. He had considered settling the case, but after hearing what I had to say he decided the case was stronger than he originally thought. That single IME led to a case and then another.

I consult on many cases for him and attend all of the IMEs. It took awhile, but he finally saw me for the professional I am and how he benefits from my CLNC^® services. I felt like I had run a marathon, but it was worth it in the end.

Nikki J. Chuml, RNC, FMC, PRN, CLNC is an independent Certified Legal Nurse Consultant in California with more than 25 years of nursing experience. She works as a consulting expert in a variety of specialties and as an OB testifying expert nationwide. Nikki is a CLNC^® Mentor and a guest faculty member for Vickie Milazzo Institute.

It’s important to avoid a bulletproof mentality in the decisions you make for your legal nurse consulting business as well as in the cases you’re working on for your attorney-clients. I like to shoot holes in my own decisions. This doesn’t mean I don’t move forward with the decision, but it does mean I’ll be more prepared if things go south. Then, when things don’t go perfectly or as planned, we’re not a perfect target for perfect failure and destruction.

At the Institute, before we implement a business idea or decision, I’ll sometimes ask my executive team to brainstorm and discuss the upside and the downside. This forces even the most fervent supporter or opponent of an idea to challenge their own viewpoint. Sometimes it’s the person who introduced the idea who withdraws it. And sometimes it’s the opponent of an idea who ends up fervently embracing it. More often than not, we usually execute an improved version of the original idea.

Any business idea worth pursuing is worth shooting holes into it first. Smart Certified Legal Nurse Consultants know it’s better to shoot those holes themselves than to let someone else beat them to the trigger.

Success Is Inside!

The business relationship with the attorney who gave me my “breakout” case has developed in a way that I did not envision because it has resulted in my consulting almost exclusively for this one attorney-client. I know if I do a great job and maintain a successful relationship with this attorney, other attorneys in his law firm will also hire me.

One of the first things I did to strengthen my relationship with the attorney was to establish a relationship with his paralegal and assistant. It’s through them that I know when new cases come in, and I contact my attorney-client to ask not if I will jump in, but when. I also get information on discovery deadlines and then contact my attorney-client to offer help with locating the medical experts and initiating requests for their reports. I often personally pick up and drop off medical records to get my foot in the door. As a result, I have met many of the other employees in this large firm – down to Eddie in the mailroom!

I have made it a point to learn some personal information about the attorney, and use it in casual conversations. For example, I know his son participates in sports so when I came across a pair of tickets to an NFL game, I gifted those tickets to him. Periodically I visit the firm’s website for updates on cases that other attorneys have either settled or are actively working on. When I pick up or drop off records, I can engage these attorneys in conversation regarding their cases and offer my CLNC^® services.

I have permission from my attorney-client to touch base with his plaintiff clients and call them monthly to get updates on medical issues, new care providers, etc.  As a result, the attorney stays up-to-date on his clients and the medical records are always current. He loves this because it impresses his clients too!

While reading a local magazine article about a man who offered woodworking classes, I recognized one of the highlighted students as an attorney at my attorney-client’s law firm. The next time I was at the firm, I asked a paralegal where the attorney’s office was located and stalked the area until he finally came out. We exchanged hellos, at which point I began a conversation regarding the article. He invited me into his office to see other woodcrafts he had completed while attending these classes. I officially introduced myself by name and left his office with a case!

Guest Blogger Profile

Annmarie Johnson, RN, BSN, CLNC owns and operates Bucks Medical-Legal Consulting. She has been a nurse for 26 years, 24 specializing in critical care. Annmarie’s CLNC^® business specializes in construction accidents and products liability.

One of the most important principles I have learned from consulting with attorneys is to anticipate the opposing side’s arguments and positions. I also learned this analysis strategy in law school. On final exams, my grades depended upon my ability to argue both sides of every case even when I didn’t like my own arguments.

Successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultants incorporate this same type of critical thinking into their case analyses and business decisions. When I mentor beginning Certified Legal Nurse Consultants, I often caution them to avoid believing their opinions in a case are bulletproof, meaning they discount any counterarguments. When a legal nurse consultant loses objectivity, her ability to analyze the case is flawed and weakened. No position is bulletproof, as the unfortunate Casey Anthony case proved. There is nothing wrong with having strong opinions, but the danger in the bulletproof mentality is that it doesn’t respond well to the inevitable volley of silver bullets.

How does a CLNC^® consultant avoid the bulletproof mentality? Easy; never think that your position is unassailable and always look at the other side’s possible arguments, no matter how ridiculous they might seem on the surface.

Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, Dale Barnes shared her experience of the bulletproof mentality and how she handled the consequences with her attorney-client:

“Early in my career as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, I researched a case and concluded it was meritorious. Well into the case, what I thought was impossible occurred. The plaintiff started to improve, and the damages started to disappear before our eyes. The case was not as tragic and not quite as slam-dunk as I had led my attorney-client and myself to believe.

Once I overcame my embarrassment, I immediately confronted the issue and was honest with my attorney-client. He was obviously not happy. Based on my opinion, he had invested a lot of his own money into the case. I told him that I had not foreseen a recovery and that I would assist him in developing a new strategy. We altered our strategy for damages by focusing strictly on the losses during the shorter time the plaintiff had been affected. The strategy worked and the case was resolved.

My attorney-client shared that because I was honest with him about what I should have done differently and because I tried to help him resolve the dilemma, he was able to trust me, and to this day we still work together.”

Dale Barnes, RN, MSN, CLNC

Next time you’re working on a case for your attorney-clients and you get that “eureka” moment where you feel you’ve reached an unassailable position, stop and think again. You owe it to yourself and to your attorney-clients to not only keep your objectivity, but to also put it to good use by looking for the other side’s silver bullet. Successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultants know that it’s when you feel most bulletproof that you’re really not.

Success Is Inside!

An email titled Send This to Everyone in New York Who Handles Nursing Malpractice Cases was forwarded to me by one of my attorney-clients. The author was the managing partner of New York City’s largest medical malpractice firm. For the last six years, I had been trying to think of a creative way to get referrals from this firm. Vickie’s blog on intuitive vision was still fresh in my mind. I knew immediately that I had to stop reviewing a complex medical record, put the day’s usual business on hold and focus on this potential opportunity.

This partner described a complex home health care case that had been won by the defense and just reversed by the appellate court. Essentially the court opined that the RN who administered an IV steroid as ordered by the physician was negligent for failing to ensure that epinephrine, which was not ordered by the physician, was available in case the patient experienced anaphylactic shock. I decided to get a little playful and titled my email My Two Cents. I started my opinion in a succinct, professional manner.

To my surprise, the response came in the form of an immediate phone call from the partner himself. My CLNC^® education from Vickie Milazzo Institute prepared me to deliver my two-minute unique selling position (USP). I was thrilled to be invited to discuss my experience with nursing chain-of-command issues at the law firm.

The attorney scheduled a full hour with me prior to the presentation, and after 15 minutes, he called the RN in charge of coordinating nurse expert reviews. He said, “Put Margaret at the top of the list for expert reviews.”

The presentation was attended by 74 attorneys who work solely with medical malpractice cases. Within a week of that presentation, I started to receive referrals and cases.

Acting on my intuition that day not only opened the door to an ongoing opportunity, but also helped me to grow my CLNC^® business even more.

Guest Blogger Profile

Margaret M. Gallagher, RN, BSN, MSN, CLNC has been a staff nurse, RN educator and senior nursing and hospital administrator for over 30 years. She founded Patient Care Executive Consulting in 2004 and became a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant in 2005. She is an assistant professor at Wagner College in Staten Island and has reviewed over 800 medical malpractice cases.

Everyone has a favorite restaurant and I’m lucky enough to have several, depending upon which city I’m in when I get hungry. Here in Houston, it’s an Italian pizzeria enoteca called Dolce Vita in an old house near downtown. Sunday afternoons, if we’re in town, you can frequently find Tom and me on their shaded patio indulging in the outdoors with a glass of healthy red wine and scrumptious, real Italian food. This is a very casual, feel-good, comfy restaurant completely void of pretensions. But Dolce Vita’s standards are far from casual.

From the moment you pull into the parking lot, the valet welcomes you back and parks your car without giving you a ticket. (Side note: Visitors to Houston are always surprised that most restaurants have a valet to park your car 20 feet from the restaurant’s front door, but once you’ve experienced a Houston summer you instantly know why). Somehow when you go to leave, he clairvoyantly has your car waiting, air-conditioner running.

When you first walk in, the staff greats you effusively and escorts you to your table like you’re an old friend. The food is fresh and inventive. One of my favorites is the unique Truffle Egg Toast which is a thick piece of country bread with an egg inside, covered with parmigiano-reggiano cheese and toasted to perfection under a high-temperature broiler until it’s crispy and brown outside. Then it’s covered with sliced black truffles, drizzled with truffle oil and served on a plate so hot I’m surprised the servers can even carry it to the table. When you first cut into it, the egg yolk runs out onto the plate, mixes with more crispy cheese and begs to be mopped up with the bread. (I’m making myself hungry).

But the real magic of this restaurant is one of the servers, Isabel. There are a couple of servers that recognize us and always stop by to chat, but Isabel is different. She takes total ownership of us from the moment she sees us – whether it’s in the doorway, at our table or waiting at the bar for a table.

By total ownership, I mean exactly that. Even if we’re not seated in her section, she treats us like we’re old friends. Once we’re seated, she’ll stop by to chat and supplements the attentions of the assigned server so we receive double the service.  She anticipates every want and need and sometimes I believe she can read our minds. Isabel always has the inside track on what’s good or new on the menu. Best of all, she’s never pushy. If we drop in for a glass of wine and an appetizer, she’s just as happy and attentive as if we bring a bunch of friends and spend a long evening chowing down encouraging each other to “mangia, mangia.”

On our last visit, Tom noticed mussels were part of one of the specials and asked Isabel about his favorite appetizer, mussels in a marina sauce with oven-roasted bread, which wasn’t on the menu. Before we knew it, she’d arranged for the kitchen to prepare that dish for us and delivered it to the table.

In all of the years she’s owned us, Isabel has consistently delivered amazing service. I love the restaurant even when she’s not there, but when she’s working the restaurant feels more like home. In fact when we travel back to Houston, whether it’s from a CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Seminar, business trip, visit with family or vacation, we immediately dump our luggage and head straight to Dolce Vita.

Could you be more like Isabel in your legal nurse consulting business? Do you take total ownership of your attorney-clients as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant? Do you provide the type of service that they’ll rave about to other attorneys? When you’re reviewing a case, do you make recommendations for additional CLNC^® services based on the attorney’s expressed likes and needs or do you simply provide the same size bowl of spaghetti and meatballs or worse yet wait for the attorney to tell you what to do and when?

The next time you’re getting ready to talk with one of your attorney-clients, take a moment to think of Isabel and take total ownership. They’ll love it and you’ll most likely be creating a relationship for life.

Success Is Inside!

One of our CLNC^® pros, Suzanne Arragg, shares how losing sight of her business plan almost cost her a valuable attorney-client and what she did to come back even stronger.

“A couple of years ago a law firm I had worked with for three years noticeably stopped sending new cases to me and emails I sent on existing cases went unanswered. My relationship with the paralegal paid off. She called me to let me know that the partners were shopping for another nurse consultant. She told me she was advocating for me and had expressed her concern to the attorneys that she felt it was unfair they hadn’t let me know. I thanked her for her phone call and as I hung up, my head started to spin.

This was a reality check. Too often, we become comfortable with the daily routine of business and forget the importance of spending time each day on our business plan and marketing. Even if it is only 10-15 minutes, we should never lose sight of its importance.

Once my head stopped whirling and my thoughts became more organized, I began to refocus on my CLNC^® business practices and market more. Within a couple of months, new cases began to arrive and I picked up new attorney-clients. But more importantly, I did not lose sight of the value of my existing attorney-clients. I continued to call the partners and express my commitment to servicing their law firm. Guess what? They called to set up a meeting to discuss moving forward. Since that time, our relationship is stronger than ever. In fact, at their request I have expanded my CLNC ^® services to meet their litigation needs.

In hindsight, I think their shopping experience was healthy not only for them, but for me as well. They quickly realized the communication and work product of others did not compare to mine. I learned that taking the time to build strong relationships with attorney-clients and their staff has value beyond the dollar and that losing sight of my business plan was a prescription for potential failure.”

Suzanne E. Arragg, RN, BSN, CDONA/LTC, CLNC

Success Is Inside!

I have to admit, unlike Tom, there are not too many devices that give me “gadget envy.” One that does is the iPad2^®. I’m sure there’s an iPad in my future – if for no other reason than to allow me to read magazines and books while listening to music or to watch my own choice of movies on long international flights. Other than the obvious email, web-surfing and entertainment uses, I’ve been trying to find professional uses, so I surveyed attorneys and Certified Legal Nurse Consultants to ask how they use their iPads. I also spoke with a friend who has a company that creates demonstrative evidence for law firms to see how he’s using his iPad.

Attorneys and CLNC^® consultants are well aware that with an iPad they can easily access the Internet to research an expert or other subject during a deposition or trial, or email their office for help, documents or vital information.

There’s also a rapidly growing world of legal apps that attorneys find useful, such as The Deponent App. This app links to a database of sample deposition questions that are grouped by question type. Of course, each case is different so attorneys will want to customize and add their own questions and the app lets them. But here’s the best part: Deponent allows you to link a particular question to an exhibit – so long as the exhibit is stored in an Adobe^® pdf format. This popular feature can help keep the attorney from losing track of an exhibit or an expert’s CV during the deposition process. Of course, to enter exhibits such as documents, photographs or other demonstrative evidence, etc., into the court record, attorneys as of today still need to have paper copies that can be properly marked and admitted into evidence.

Attorneys and Certified Legal Nurse Consultants can also use Deponent to take deposition notes on the iPad instead of on a trusty legal pad and to annotate an exhibit with comments or follow-up questions. All that aside, Deponent does have some limitations, but it’s a good start and an evolving app.

Another must-have for attorneys is a file-management app that helps organize and keep track of files and allows remote access to a desktop computer to retrieve documents (in case she forgets a document, exhibit or her depo notes).

My friend with the demonstrative evidence company is an early-adopter and loves his iPad for making sales calls and especially for reviewing trial graphics in an attorney’s office. He can examine, blow-up and, in some cases, annotate an exhibit if it’s in pdf format. His creative staff can then edit that graphic or create new ones and get them to him on-the-fly. He and his attorney-clients have great discussions over which demonstrative evidence will enhance their position in the case.

My friend brought up another logical use, one that I must admit I hadn’t thought about, and that is the ability to view accident scenes and other locations using Google^® Earth. From that “view,” they can also discuss how to present evidence visually, create supporting animations and to make an initial (and often subsequent) site visit without what can sometimes be a fruitless and time-consuming trip from the office.

CLNC^® consultants can use the iPad in a fashion similar to my friend’s – for showing sample work-product, graphics, etc., during sales calls to attorney-prospects. When consulting with an attorney-client on a case, the ability to research something or illustrate that point without the need (or wait) to boot up a laptop is priceless. Like the attorney, you can take notes during deposition and trial and also access copies of the medical record, X-rays and other stored documents as you follow an expert or party’s testimony. You can also use it to keep up with your email from other attorney-clients during breaks. But the best part is that at the end of the day, you’ll look wicked cool and cutting-edge in the attorney’s eyes, which can only help with your branding.

iPads are certainly making increased penetration into the legal and legal nurse consulting worlds. Are they a necessity? Not yet. Are they a great accessory? Yes. As more and more legal-related apps are developed, I’m sure that Certified Legal Nurse Consultants will find new ways to use them to expand their CLNC^® practices. Hmmm, I wonder if I should get mine now?

Success Is Inside!