attorney

During my 10+ years as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, I have been fortunate to have worked with a few of the most prestigious elder abuse attorney litigators in the U.S. Being a member of the trial team is an experience that for me epitomizes the world of legal nurse consulting. It is the high point of my CLNC^® business and I consider it to be a privilege. While I could share many remarkable stories, two experiences stand out.

The first experience was the second time I had been a part of a trial team. As a CLNC^® consultant, I worked the file inside and out, read thousands of pages of medical records, hundreds of pages of deposition transcripts and worked with the testifying experts in preparation for their trial testimony. Finally, we were in trial. I sat in the first row of the audience and, as my attorney-client instructed, passed notes to the bailiff who in turn gave them to my attorney-client. I watched plaintiff counsel put on their case. Finally, the plaintiff’s RN testifying expert was on the stand. Direct examination completed and cross examination had begun. I began to fervently write potential questions on my note pad and passed them along. Then the judge called for a break.

My attorney-client motioned for me to approach the defense table. He said, “Suzanne, take me through this line of questioning.” Point by point; I lead him through what I thought was a convincing defense clinical argument. Our goal was to “poke holes” in the plaintiff expert’s opinion. My attorney-client was so impressed with my argument, he turned to me and said, “Suzanne, you should be an attorney!” I was flattered and gasped all at the same time! I never thought I could use my nursing expertise to help a legal team! I have no desire to become an attorney, but I am sure thankful and excited to be a successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultant!

My second outstanding experience was as a testifying expert. I was asked to render my opinion regarding the nursing standard of care in a nursing home elder abuse case. The case surrounded a fall, fracture, skin tears and bruises. Many hours went into trial preparation. My opinions were laced into my defense-client’s opening presentation.

Finally, it was my turn to testify. The adrenaline was racing through my veins. Boy, was I pumped! Direct examination went well. Now it was plaintiff’s turn. Cross-examination proceeded fairly well. Counsel repeated questions previously asked and tried to change them in an attempt to trip me up. It wasn’t working. I could see he was becoming frustrated. The volume of his voice began to rise. All the while, I sat relaxed (so I’m told) in the witness chair.

Then came the line of questioning surrounding a dog bite that was sustained during routine pet visits. The resident had pet the dog, as he had so many times before, but this time the dog nipped him. The “bite” healed uneventfully. Because the attorney couldn’t rattle my cage, he blurted out the question, “What kind of dog was it, anyway?” I paused, but before an objection could be given, I responded, “That’s irrelevant.” The jury laughed, my attorney-client at the defense table smiled, and the plaintiff’s attorney was left speechless!

When I got the call that the jury had found for the defense, I was thrilled. My attorney-client was also thrilled with the verdict, and was especially thrilled with my testimony and appreciative of my input as a member of his trial team.

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

As I embarked on my new career as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, I received a case from an attorney and I wanted to do the best job ever. So I reviewed the records over and over until I knew those records like the back of my hand.

I met with my attorney-client to discuss my opinions on the case and as I was sitting in her office going over the events and the records that supported each opinion, I felt as though I was speaking in slow motion and so below her level of knowledge. All of a sudden she stood up behind her desk and yelled out, “What?” I stopped in my tracks and sat there with what I am sure was a blank stare. I didn’t know what I did wrong or what I had said to offend her. She continued, “What did you just say?” I repeated what I had said about what had happened to this patient in a moment of critical care. She again said, “What? Where did you find that information? Show me where it says that.” With trembling hands, I showed her and she ran out of the room. I sat there holding my breath. I was sure I had said something horribly wrong. Maybe I insulted her and didn’t realize it.

After some time, she returned to the room with two gentlemen. I thought to myself, okay, these must be the bouncers and I am being thrown out. The two men sat down next to me. I had the records in my lap and dropped them. I am sure I wasn’t even breathing. Was I blue yet?

The older male attorney started to explain to me that I had found the missing link. I had found the smoking gun. I had found… whatever other metaphors I can come up with. I had found information that was invaluable in the case. No one had found what I had found, not even the MD experts. Oh, and by the way, I could breathe again.

I had found the key to winning the case and we did ultimately succeed in winning. I felt so good.

I now consult with two other attorneys in that firm and also consult for two of their other offices. But on that day, I felt like I could conquer the world. This experience gave me the confidence I needed to keep going. And here I am ten years later still going strong.

Nikki J. Chuml, RNC, FMC, PRN, CLNC

Read Part 1. Read Part 3.

Tip #6

Check the “To:” line before you send and don’t hit “Reply to All” unless you know who “all” really is. This is a great way to send an email to the wrong people (perhaps even the opposing side). If you use the “auto-fill” feature for addresses it will fill in the email addresses as you start typing. If you have any attorney-clients with similar names, you need to be extra careful. Only “Cc:” someone if they need to be copied. Be careful with the use of “Bcc:.” Once you send an email, you lose control over who it is forwarded to and what changes can be made in the body/content as it’s forwarded. Attorneys like to know who is being included on their correspondence so using “Bcc:” to show your friends how important you are is a bad move.

Tip #7

Remember that once you send it, you can’t call it back. Email has almost no ability to be recalled. In other words when you click “send” it’s off to its final destination, errors and all. We’ve all sent an email while feeling angry or upset about something and then wished we hadn’t. If you think you’re being a little strong, take a few minutes between finishing the typing and hitting send. Then come back and review it to make sure you really want to send it as is.

Tip #8

Irony, sarcasm and humor aren’t always readily apparent in an email. Remember that the reader can’t hear your tone of voice or see that you were smiling while you wrote the communication. They may misinterpret your communication in a way you did not expect.

Tip #9

Go ahead and break the chain. No one will die. It’s time to stop forwarding those “urgent pleas” for peace on earth, save the whales or other chain letter emails that would be debunked after a visit to Snopes.com. Your seven best friends or legal nurse consultant subcontractors have probably already deleted that same email without sending it to you, so return the favor. If you don’t know the kind of emails I’m talking about I can send you a few so you’ll get the idea.

Tip #10

Don’t forward jokes, even if you think they’re hilarious. Not everyone shares the same sense of humor and not everyone has a sense of humor (I can personally think of two attorneys and a doctor that I’ve never heard laugh – ever). A joke you might find funny will be offensive to someone else and you risk appearing unprofessional. If you do send the joke, spell check it first (unless that’s part of the joke). Just joking. DO NOT send jokes.

Tip #11

Remember, many attorneys didn’t grow up texting, so don’t think every attorney is familiar with those goofy acronyms your 14-year-old uses in her text messages. OMG that’s SHR2B trouble. While you’re at it, don’t use smileys or other cutesy emoticons either. You risk looking like an amateur. You wouldn’t put them in a business letter – don’t use them with your attorney-clients (save them for communications with your kids).

Tip #12

Close your email with a signature. Email signature files are a great way to do a little more branding. Your signature should contain your name, credentials, title and phone number (so you don’t have to type it each time) and can also include your legal nurse consulting company name, address, a confidentiality statement or whatever you want. Outlook^® allows multiple (selectable) signatures because not every email is created equally. I have one signature with a confidentiality statement, another that has my full over-the-top branded “Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author, Inc. 5000, etc.” information, one that says “DO IT NOW” (just kidding – but it’s a good idea) and a simple one I use on internal email that just says, “Thanks, Vickie.” If you have a BlackBerry^®, change the signature from the one that reads “Sent from my BlackBerry^® while sitting in traffic” to a text version of your full signature. If you’re using signatures, use your full signature on the first email and an abbreviated one on replies and on daily correspondence. It’s time consuming to have to scroll through a lot of full signatures to review the meat of an email thread that’s gone back and forth.

Tip #13

Separate your private life from your legal nurse consulting business with separate email accounts. Use the branded email for your company and business communications. Set up an account with your Internet service provider or one of the free email services like Gmail, live.com or Yahoo! for your personal email. That way when you do send that ROFL Cats email (Bing! it) to everyone in your address book, it won’t go to your attorney-clients too.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share your tips for professional email communications.

Read Part 2. Read Part 3.

I get a lot of email. Too much email some might say. My inbox starts filling up well before Vickie Milazzo Institute opens, with internal business. I had no idea how much email employees could generate, correspondence from vendors, email from students and Certified Legal Nurse Consultants who need mentoring and who just want to say hello and share their CLNC^® success. Fortunately, I am blessed to be the recipient of professional emails 99% of the time. But the other 1% is what I want to talk about in this blog.

Why is someone communicating to me in all CAPITAL letters or with bad spelling, poor punctuation, rambling styles and with no subject line (Really!). And if that someone is a legal nurse consultant, I worry that they are communicating with their attorney-clients and attorney-prospects, experts and other legal nurse consultants in the same unprofessional way. I have to assume they are. After all, with the possible exception of people with multiple personality disorders (You know who you are, and so do you and you.), most people don’t magically switch styles when they switch email accounts. In fact, some even use the same email account for business and personal – another no-no.

In just three blogs, I’m going to give Certified Legal Nurse Consultants the tips that will guarantee the professionalism of your email communications with your attorney-clients.

Tip #1

Get a real email address. Attorneys communicate with other professionals – attorneys, doctors, engineers, economists, etc. Professionals have email addresses like Marcus.Welby@GeneralHospital.org or B.Smith@SmithBarney.com. Those email addresses communicate more professionalism than NrseJckee2@email.com or LikesKittens@whatever.org.

When you send a business letter you use letterhead stationery and a matching envelope. Think of your email address as your envelope and make it reflect your professionalism. If you have a domain name for your legal nurse consulting business you can easily set up an email account with the hosting provider and have your email address be congruent with your business name. Think Susan.Smith@SmithLegalNurseConsulting.com. That’s called branding and it’s a powerful tool in the right hands.

Tip #2

Use a “Subject:” that makes it clear what the email is about. Many people do not use the “preview” function in their email client which forces them to open the email to see what it’s about. Have you ever opened an email only to find it’s not what you expected or because you couldn’t figure out what it was? I recommend you use a subject that is clear and makes sense, not only today but in a few weeks when you’re searching for an email in a cluttered inbox or “sent” mailbox. If you’re working on a particular case, include the case name somewhere in the subject. If it relates to a meeting, include the date (re: Hawkins case – 10/26 client interview notes) and anything else that will help the recipient decide what priority to assign to reading it.

When someone sends me an email with a bad subject line and I then either reply or forward it, I’ll often correct the subject line by putting my (sensible) subject in front of their (unintelligible) subject. By keeping their subject in the line, they’ll know what the email is about and can delete their subject from further replies, etc. Also, if you change the subject matter of the email, make the appropriate change to the subject line. It only makes sense.

Tip #3

Organize your inbox with folders. Certified Legal Nurse Consultants don’t just keep one general inbox with 547 emails on various subjects. They create subfolders organized by case names or other relevant naming conventions. You do this just like you create paper files in your office. After replying to an email, drag that email into the appropriate folder. That keeps your inbox clear and uncluttered. If you’re waiting for a response, you might keep the original email until you get the response and then file both. Depending upon the communication you can often put a “sent” folder inside each subfolder. Then file the sent email there for easier recall later. This beats searching through a crowded “sent” mailbox and is another reason for using strong subject lines. It makes it easier when searching through those archived messages weeks or months after they’ve been sent or since you last looked at a case.

Tip #4

When you need to communicate a really short message to someone, then do it inside the subject line of the email. End the subject line with “NoMsg” or “EOM” (end of message). This is a wonderful way to communicate a short message to someone. The non-preview people really love this one.

Tip #5

Spend a few minutes figuring out how to turn on the spell-checking function of your particular email client. We use Outlook^® and it’s got a pretty good speller. Just about every email client has a spell-checking function either built in or available as an add-on. If yours does not, then compose your email in Word or another word-processing program that has a spell checker and then cut and paste it over to your email. Nothing, and I mean, nothing (except bad grammar) spells unprofessional more than spelling errors. Even my BlackBerry^® has a spell-checking feature. This helps prevent minor and major typographical errors (but does not replace proofreading). If you do one thing for your legal nurse consulting career after reading this blog, please let it be this tip.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share your tips for professional email communications.

I’m a big advocate of brainstorming and often some of the best ideas for Vickie Milazzo Institute come from brainstorming, both formal and informal. People at the Institute are always brainstorming in the hallway, in each other’s offices, at each others’ desks and even in the restrooms.

The ideas are sparking and the atmosphere is almost incendiary. When we come together and engage in a conversation we raise new questions and think of things at a level we would not have reached on our own. Collaboration is genius.

Likewise, some of my best ideas for Vickie Milazzo Institute come to me not in the midst of a passionate brainstorm, but when no one else is around and I’m writing.

I confess, I write best alone – just me, Beethoven, my favorite pen, a legal pad and a stack of sticky notes for company. Even Tom knows to stay out of my way when the pages start flying. Sometimes, I even tune out Beethoven.

I love writing because it not only releases the creative energy that fuels ideas for my business, but also feeds my creativity which in turn fuels my endurance allowing me to create longer and produce more. Plus, I’m always careful to capture any random thoughts, even those that seem unrelated so as to not lose them. (Note to self: get much bigger sticky notes!)

Sometimes that stray idea is pure gold. Other times it’s only a sieve through which to mine the gold. And sometimes it’s nothing more than fool’s gold – but what have you lost beside the keystrokes or a piece of paper? The idea may not even be ripe for the time, but by capturing it, you can hold it until the time is ripe. Nothing gets lost (unless your desk is really messy).

Even if you haven’t had any training in writing (nursing school taught us to chart, not to write novels), you can still write. Buy yourself a Journal or notepad. Clear a space, sit down and take a stab at writing an opinion or write about a recent trip, a funny attorney experience or your last day off. Even better, just write what’s on your mind.

You’ll be amazed how new ideas for your legal nurse consulting business will emerge even when you’re not consciously thinking about your legal nurse consulting business.

Here’s a tip. Put on your iPod and play the scores from Slumdog Millionaire or La Vie en Rose or Beethoven’s 5^th and write away, write now.

Success Is Inside!

Sometimes silence really is golden. Any negotiating coach will tell you that in a situation where one party to a negotiation makes an offer or statement and a period of silence sets in, the first party to talk or break that silence loses the point. Silence can be uncomfortable when you are talking to attorneys about your legal nurse consulting services, so how do you pull that off?

Let’s say you quote your legal nurse consulting fee and the attorney says “that’s expensive.” Pause, take a deep breath and visualize (without smiling) that attorney in the hospital wearing a hospital gown with his backside showing. For all you know he’s just thinking and processing out loud. 10 seconds, 20 seconds, a minute…your silence is a demonstration of your confidence in your status as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. Soon the attorney will get uncomfortable enough to break the silence and accept your fee (which is quite reasonable) or negotiate further.

Success Is Inside!

I’m in New York City for Easter and just got back from strolling down Fifth Avenue (Tom held my credit card) in one of the most fashionable cities in the world.

New Yorkers have it all together. They are serious about their business and they’re not afraid to prove it in the way they dress. No matter what they are wearing, they know how to package it into one congruent statement. And nobody knows how to dress up “basic black” like a New Yorker. They dress for “Success in the City” more often than “Sex in the City;” which is exactly what you have to do when you walk into an attorney’s office for a legal nurse consulting interview. I recommend that new Certified Legal Nurse Consultants hire an image consultant. New or experienced, I mean it, you need one, you’ll have to trust me on this one. So did I when I started my legal nurse consulting business 27 years ago (even though I didn’t know it at the time).

A typical nurse, I knew how to wear scrubs, but little else. One year for Christmas I asked my mom for a $50 painting I coveted so I’d have something to hang on the wall of my new one-bedroom condo. Her response was, “You need a dress, not a $50 painting.” But being the loving person she was, I got the painting and mom got a big hug. When I had my first attorney interview, I wasn’t ready to “dress for success,” but that painting sure looked great hanging on my living room wall. Fortunately for me, the attorney wasn’t (and still isn’t) the best dresser either. The dressiest things I owned were my “church clothes,” a purple sweater and grey skirt my mom had gotten me for my birthday (two months after that Christmas). Lucky for me the attorney saw what I could do for him, not what I was wearing, and hired me to work on my first medical malpractice case. I got started both on the case and on learning how to dress the part to maneuver through the attorney’s world.

I did manage to avoid the Minnie Mouse look popular at the time, but some of my suits were a little stiff and serious. Through a “friend of a friend” I met an image consultant who quickly set me straight and pulled me together (but not without a struggle). She taught me a valuable lesson. No matter how competent we are, what we wear and how we wear it speaks loudly about what people will expect from us. We may be able to deliver a high quality work product (or save a life), but if the purse doesn’t blend, the shoes are a little scuffy and if the hair’s ten years out of style – you can count on the attorney focusing on the lowest common denominator, not your 15 years of nursing experience and terrific communication skills. We nurses are pretty lenient and tend to judge other nurses first by how we’ve secured all our tools to our scrubs, then by our competencies. Attorneys hire people they perceive to already be successful. You have seconds to influence that first impression and those scrubs or purple sweater just won’t do it. Nordstrom’s and other stores offer free image consults. Take advantage of them, you’ll appreciate it later. Your best thinking got you here – their best thinking can get you out of those scrubs.

If you’ve still no clue what I’m talking about, take a trip to New York City, stroll Fifth Avenue and take a good look at what people are wearing. Just leave your credit card at home.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share your 5th-Avenue-style tips for your CLNC^® business.

Vickie,

One of my attorney-clients is willing to provide a letter of recommendation but he wants me to write it, then he will edit and sign. What do I include?

Kerri, RN, CLNC

Hi Kerri,

Congratulations! Letters of recommendation are one of the most impactful components of a legal nurse consultant’s promotional package. When an attorney first asked me to write my own letter I felt uncomfortable. How could I blow my own horn? You may be hesitant too, but go ahead – blow your own horn.

Include comments the attorney made when gushing over your work product, and especially comments regarding:

• The CLNC^® services you provided for his cases.
• How you made a huge impact on the outcome of a case.
• Your report style and its easy-to-understand format.
• Your knowledge of nursing and healthcare issues.
• Your professionalism and ability to beat deadlines.

Here’s a future tip: Capture all glowing comments and get written permission to use them as testimonials. Then place them strategically throughout your CLNC^® marketing materials.

Success Is Inside!

Vickie

First off, if you have not yet heard of Facebook, thanks for exiting your cave. I’d like to heartily welcome you to the Internet. I think you’ll like it here.

But seriously, here are some quick stats on Facebook which should be of interest to you as a CLNC^® business owner.

1. There are more than 150 million active Facebook users.
2. The number of active users has doubled in the last year.
3. About 34% of users work as professionals. This includes attorneys, sales people, executives, educators and techies.
4. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook consists of users 25 and older.

Though Facebook started in the student demographic, it’s quickly grown out of it. So, my guess is that at least a few of those 150 million active users (active users spend about 20 minutes a day on the site) are prospective attorney-clients for your legal nurse consulting business. The question is, what do you do about it?

All you have to do is sign up for an account…then start joining relevant Facebook groups to find attorney-clients for your CLNC^® business.

While you are signing up, you’ll have many options to customize and flesh out your CLNC^® profile page. Include as many details about your CLNC^® business as possible…and don’t forget all your business contact information (you want to make it easy for the attorneys to contact you).

Joining Facebook Groups

Joining Facebook Groups is easy. Simply log in to your Facebook account, and on the left tab, you will see a list of applications.

Click Groups, and once you are there, you will see two tabs, one indicating groups recently joined by your friends and the other indicating your recently updated groups.

Browse the groups and you will find more than a thousand groups available.

There is no limit to the number of groups that you can join. The more groups you join, the bigger your social network becomes.

While browsing through the groups, you can find the name of the group, its population, its type or category, the latest number of new members, the latest number of members who left the group and any updates to the group.

Even though you can offer your CLNC^® services across the country, let’s start by narrowing your focus to find local attorneys. All you need to do to find local groups is to click the Search for Groups box, enter your city (or state, if you are in a small town) and the word attorney or lawyer. Hit Enter and Facebook will give you a list of local Facebook groups for attorneys.

If you see a group name that looks interesting, view the group and read the information about it. If you feel you want to join the group, look for the Join This Group button. You automatically become a member of the group if it is a public group. If it is a private group, you’ll have to wait to be approved by the group’s admin.

Join as many groups as you can that are relevant to your quest to find more attorney-clients for your CLNC^® business.

Once you become a member of a group, you have the option to upload photos and videos for the group, write on The Wall and join discussions in the discussion board or perhaps start your own topic. Joining these different Facebook groups is not only fun but it expands your network, giving you more opportunities to market your expertise.

After you join a group, you should post a comment on their wall. Do not…I repeat…DO NOT promote yourself at this time. Simply compliment their group and thank them for creating it. Then invite the group’s admin to be your Friend.

Try to interact with others in the group by participating in the conversation on The Wall, commenting on pictures/videos and joining discussions in the discussion board. Once you interact with another member, feel free to invite them to become your Friend. When someone makes an interesting post, send that person a “Friend invitation” mentioning that you enjoyed what they had to say on the topic.

As a member of a group, you can see a list of all the group’s members. You can also send Friend invitations to people who haven’t participated, just as you did with the people who have participated. These connections won’t be as powerful as ones with people you’ve had a dialogue with, but they’ll still be your target market.

Once you have a few key people in the group as Friends, feel free to start adding a promotion to their wall every now and then.

A Word of Caution

Don’t get too gung ho about inviting every attorney you can find in your area to join your group on day one.

Facebook has a limit of how many new invitations you can send in a given day or week. The exact number isn’t posted anywhere, but if you exceed this amount you can get a warning and could get cut off from Facebook. If you stick to no more than twenty invitations a day you should be safe.

When you are sending invitations, don’t copy and paste a standard message. This can lead to a warning from Facebook. Be sure to customize each invitation you send.

Don’t Just Limit Yourself to Connecting with Attorneys

Connect with your high school, college and nursing friends also. You never know where you’ll find an attorney-prospect. I got three clients off Facebook from old high school friends…without even trying.

I think you’ll have fun with it also!

Guest Blogger Profile

Brian Horn is an Internet marketing consultant who specializes in search engine marketing, site optimization, social media marketing, link building and web data analytics. Brian has consulted with Vickie Milazzo Institute for over three years.

Brian also speaks at seminars and conferences throughout the U.S. and Canada on how to use the Internet to improve business.

It’s Spring Break time again and peace has been restored to my neighborhood. I live in what could almost be described as a pastoral setting. Although I live in Houston, the fourth largest city in the U.S., I actually live in a city within the city of Houston. It’s a small neighborhood with its own fire and police departments. On Saturday mornings, you can watch the hunky firemen wash and wax the fire trucks. We’ve got a couple of little league and soccer fields and when the weather’s nice the morning air is filled with the sounds of sprinklers and the evenings are filled with the sounds of children having fun and engaging in organized chaos.

Except for one small thing, it’s like living in a Norman Rockwell painting. Right in the middle of these fields of fun is an elementary school. Each day on my morning commute I have the misfortune to pass through a school zone full of frenzied, caffeine-deprived soccer moms jockeying for position to drop their little ones off at the perfect spot.

This sounds like no big deal until you experience it first hand. Suddenly a quiet street turns into a heavy-metal combination of a demolition derby, death race, Indy 500 and bumper-car-ride full of median-strip-hopping SUVs the size of small airliners. Dropping off children is a competitive sport worthy of its own reality show.

I almost believe they can smell fear or hesitation from the inside of the Suburban. Be a second or two slow off the stop sign, and three cars have glided through the 4-way stop at the intersection (one from behind you). They’ll make kamikaze turns in front of you to drift-slide into a parallel parking spot like a Japanese racer. It’s like a pool of armored piranhas.

They come at you from all directions – U-turning, 3-point-turning (in about 16 points due to the overly large turning radius), stopping and waiting with the turn signal on for a parking spot that won’t be available until that driver gets off her cell phone, walks her son to the school, has a conference and cookie with the teacher, walks back, adjusts her makeup in the rearview mirror and checks every radio station in Houston for her favorite song before heading off to Starbucks^® for a Skinny Latte before yoga class.

The relentlessness of this race-for-the-door makes me a little crazy. At the center of this sturm und drang stand the gatekeepers who patiently wave the cars in, one after the other, to drop off the kiddos. These are the wizards of the walk and they have the power to banish an unruly mom for a second lap around the “fruit” loop before discharging the precious cargo. Even the person who two seconds ago was threatening to pull your intestines out through your teeth suddenly experiences extreme bursts of politeness and becomes as docile as a lamb when faced with the power of the gatekeepers.

What’s the takeaway for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants? Don’t run over the gatekeeper in your dash to the attorney’s office. Don’t be intimidated either. Gatekeepers control access but they have rules to do their job and as long as you obey the rules, or don’t bend them too far, you can get access. Be nice to them. Hard to believe as it may be, gatekeepers are people too. Pay them a compliment (”Gee, your hair is a nice shade of blue today – it complements your housecoat.”), bring them some of their favorite food (roasted wildebeest or brownies) and remember their birthdays (right before Lincoln’s). Be nice to the gatekeeper and they’ll be nice to you.

When all else fails, just call the attorney’s office and say “Hey Doris, this is your name here. Can you put me through to attorney’s first name here? She’s expecting my call.”

Good luck. Stay off the streets and up on the street lights where it’s safe.

Success Is Inside!