attorney-client

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!

Many of you know I share my birthday with my twin brother Vince. (No, we’re not identical, he’s my brother.) When we were teenagers, our parents took us to the local roller-skating rink for our birthday party. All of our friends came and we were soon skating clockwise around the rink, all at different speeds and at different levels of skill.

As you can imagine, Vince and his friends were flying around the rink like the teenage boys they were, trailing testosterone and intentionally zooming in and out among my teenage girlfriends, trying to frighten us, impress us or both.

That is, all the boys but one. Changing the names to protect the relatively innocent, the star athlete, Danny, couldn’t skate. He’d apparently never been on skates before, but to his credit, was gamely shuffling around the outside of the rink with one hand hovering near the safety of the handrail. The girls were all laughing as we zoomed past him!

Then about a half hour into the party, Danny took a fall and to his horror, split his pants from front to back. Now, you’d think that a macho football player would call it quits right there and then. Instead, he stood up, took off his sweater, tied it around his waist to cover the split and got right back to shuffling around the rink. He stayed for the rest of the party and you’d never have guessed from the fun he was having that anything had happened.

To this day I recall with fond memories how much heart Danny showed, not just by taking on something he wasn’t very good at, roller-skating, in front of all his friends who celebrated his athletic prowess, but especially the heart he showed in staying in the game after splitting his pants.

What about you? How much heart do you put into your CLNC^® business even when you split your pants right in front of your attorney-clients? Do you get back up on your CLNC^® skates and get back on the rink or do you sit on the sidelines?

Like a roller rink, legal nurse consulting isn’t always smooth skating. Some days you’ll fly around the rink with your attorney-client’s praise, others you’ll be shuffling along with that difficult case you’re working on and you may even take a fall. But if it starts to get rough, think of Danny shuffling around that rink with his split pants; show some heart and get back on the legal nurse consulting rink. Before you know it you’ll be at the party with your CLNC^® peers.

Here’s the funniest part of this story – Danny went on to become a professional football player with our hometown Saints. But as far as I know he never went skating again.

Success Is Inside!

Successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultants know that one of the tricks to effectively communicating with attorney-clients is to recognize the different forms of communication necessary to get a point across. One of the best methods I’ve found is this: explain the issue in plain English, then explain it again using an example and finally, explain how the example illustrates the point you just made twice.

I call this my “3-Ts” method of effective communication: “Tell’em, Tell’em again and Tell’em what you told them.” Repetition works. That’s why you hear an 800 number or “One day only, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday” repeated over and over again in a commercial. By repeating, they make sure the message is conveyed.

The first time you break down the complex issue into plain English and explain it to your attorney-client, he will mentally process the information on a theoretical basis (or think about his golf game). The second time you explain it, use a relevant example, which takes it from the theoretical world to the practical world, especially if it involves an example similar to the attorney-client’s case. Finally, the last time you tell him what you just told him, you explain not just the example, but the application. By this point, if you’ve done it correctly, you’ve effectively communicated a complex issue. If you’ve done it really well, the attorney may even be able to use your explanation in deposition or at trial.

The next time you’ve explained something to an attorney-client and been met by a blank look, quickly switch to Vickie’s 3-Ts to “Tell’em, Tell’em again and Tell’em what you told them.” You’ll see that look turn into a smile of enlightenment. Just don’t make me have to tell you again.

Success Is Inside!

Courtroom technology is a wonderful thing. Use of technology in the courtroom has gone far beyond the good old days of poster boards, overhead projectors and VHS video playback. Now we see state-of-the-art animation played directly from attorneys’ laptops and viewed on wide-screen televisions that would make any sports fan drool. There’s touch screen technology which allows attorneys or witnesses to annotate projected images of evidence and portable Elmos to allow plug and play projection of evidence to individual video monitors for each juror. The courtroom is changing as jurors demand entertainment along with the evidence and Certified Legal Nurse Consultants should always look for ways to recommend their attorney-clients make the best use of that technology.

There are two main purposes for using technology in the courtroom. The first is obvious, to assist the jury in understanding the evidence or to illuminate a salient point in the case. The second is to keep the jury’s attention and entertain.

Tom and I were having dinner with a friend at their new house. The husband went to show us his elaborate home theatre system. Four phone calls to his support tech, 45 minutes and a little bit of swearing later, he got it working. If we’d been a jury he’d have lost us at the blue-screen-of-death, which brings up another courtroom technology tip, always have a Plan B.

Success Is Inside!

Remember when you were in grammar school and had to write reports? Remember how the students with the best handwriting always got better grades? When I clicked to that fact I concentrated on making my handwriting as neat as possible, hoping to score a bonus point or two. And except for my grades in conduct, I did a great job of accomplishing that goal.

First impressions are indeed lasting in all aspects of life and that fact is especially true for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants and their attorney-clients. My first subcontractors were my typist’s children. She had eight kids and I used seven of them in my business through the years. They became excellent assistants, pulling the results of my research from the shelves of the medical library. I personally taught each and every one of them the art of making flawless, straight copies of those research studies. Their work contributed to the first impressions I was making with my attorney-clients.

My typist and I were both equally attentive to the appearance of the reports. By the time the attorney sat down to absorb them he was ready. Nothing (no typos, bad formatting or messiness) was getting in the way of his receiving, accepting and trusting my opinion. Our attention to impression also contributed to those attorneys becoming long-lasting clients.

Today I critique a lot of work product from legal nurse consultants and sometimes my best advice is “Go back and create a new first impression, because if you don’t, you won’t get a second chance with that attorney.” Your legal nurse consulting business, like life, isn’t a video game. You won’t get a mulligan, do-over or a reset button on an attorney-client.

You rarely get a second chance, so make your first impression count for real the first time.

Success Is Inside!

Providing attorney-prospects free information is a great marketing strategy that can give you instant credibility as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. You can provide free information through an information newsletter (print or electronic), website and even social media, especially Facebook and Twitter.

One mistake I see legal nurse consultants making is providing information that attorneys view as less developed and possibly less credible than information from other sources available to them. For example, medical-malpractice attorneys aren’t interested in hearing about changes in the law, verdicts or settlements from nurses. They subscribe to legal reporters, legal publications, RSS feeds and email alerts that not only give them the information, but also complete it with analysis from experts. That analysis helps to offset the simple “reporting” that is all too common in many newsletters.

What attorneys do want to learn from Certified Legal Nurse Consultants are those pieces of information on which the CLNC^® consultant is considered to be the expert. This includes information on changes in standards of care, hospital policy and procedure changes, relevant healthcare studies and other pertinent information that will provide them clear insight into the complex healthcare system.

Attorneys are crazy busy like the rest of us, and they carefully triage what they read. Think of your own reading practices and how you decide what you will and will not read. Use your own practices to assess and ensure that your free information is not just free, but also relevant and compelling to the attorneys who will read it.

Success Is Inside!

A marketing strategy I teach in the CLNC^® Certification Program is to show the attorney what you can do. Telling is not enough. Carol Ann McLawhorn, RN, BSN, CLNC used this principle with an attorney-client who hired her to consult on a case and set a budget. Carol Ann knew she could do more, so she did just that.

Watch her video to see how the attorney responded.

Congratulations, Carol Ann!

Success Is Inside!

Plaintiff and defense attorneys have been given an incredible gift by Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook team. I’m not sure that Facebook had the plaintiff or defense bars in mind when they added the upgrade that allows Facebook users to download a “complete” copy of the postings to their profiles. This tool captures messages sent back and forth by members using the messaging function and captures postings to your profile, video, photographs, etc.

I’ve blogged in the past about the discoverability of postings on Facebook and other social media sites. Prior to today, when it’s been claimed that content on a site like Facebook is subject to discovery, judges have gone to great lengths, including extremes such as “friending” a party in order to do an in-camera review of that party’s Facebook page to determine whether or not the content is relevant to a lawsuit. In other cases where a Facebook profile was provided, discussion threads may not have been fully expanded so information was left out and there were other anomalies that occurred which interfered with full discovery. Today, an attorney can simply request that a party’s entire Facebook profile be downloaded and ask for the full profile or just the relevant portions. The other party cannot object or claim that it would be a burdensome or impossible process.

We all know Facebook can be a place where people let down their guard, speak freely and, unfortunately, sometimes behave badly. In your legal nurse consulting cases you may want to bring your attorney-clients into the loop about Facebook and the wealth of information available there. At the same time, let’s all remember that we’re all creating a vast and permanent digital footprint. Let’s set good examples by keeping ours clean.

Success Is Inside!

On a trip to Dallas, Tom and I decided to splurge and take a rare dive into the breakfast buffet. We had a long day ahead of us and figured we’d at least have a good meal to start us off. I’m not normally a fan of buffets, but it was included in our room package so I figured what-the-hey – I can eat as little or as much as I want.

The chef was making omelets to order and I went to town. A little garlic and herbs, some chopped bell pepper, cilantro, onions, jalapenos, mushrooms, maybe a little more garlic, and once the masterpiece was complete, I had the chef finish it off with cheddar cheese inside and sprinkled on top after it was “folded.”  I’ll let you in on my secret to perfect omelets: I have the chef sauté the ingredients for a few minutes before he folds them into the eggs – you get a much richer taste that way. I can easily pass on all the waffles and sweet stuff that people enjoy on breakfast buffets, but I do love my omelets.

That morning, Tom and I were getting ours made at the same time.  I told the chef that I wanted a smaller omelet than Tom’s. When I came back to pick it up, ours were exactly the same size! Tasty, but much more than I wanted.

As a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, are you serving your attorney-clients the same size omelets? Sure the ingredients will be different from case to case, but attorneys come in all shapes and sizes. Don’t be a robo-chef. You might be mixing together different ingredients into your legal nurse consulting work product and think you’re giving each attorney-client something unique, but if you’re using that chef’s one-size-fits-all philosophy and treating all your clients as if they want the same size omelet, you are the one who is missing out.

Make sure that as a CLNC^® consultant you’re really giving each attorney-client the dish they’ve ordered, not just the one you want to prepare. That’s how you’ll keep them happy.

Success Is Inside!

Terry Van Olst, RN, BS, CLNC explains that one of the most rewarding parts of her CLNC^® business is having attorneys thank her and praise her work-product as “exactly what I needed.”

Take a moment to watch Terry’s video and hear how being praised for her work gets her so revved up about being a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant that she feels like a Ferrari^®!

Congratulations Terry!

Success Is Inside!