Now that the holiday shopping season is over it’s time for all Certified Legal Nurse Consultants to take a few minutes and make sure that their computers survived the shopping stress. There’s all sorts of things that get installed on our computers while shopping and surfing the web. These include relatively harmless things such as tracking cookies and seriously harmful things such as malware.
To get attorneys engaged during an interview, Certified Legal Nurse Consultants should ask questions. But not just any question will do. In fact, there is one question you never, ever want to ask. The moment a legal nurse consultant asks an attorney, “What do you need me to do for you?” she instantly labels herself an amateur. That question pegs her as someone who has no clue what she’s supposed to do as a professional legal nurse consultant.
“It’s the start that stops most people.” This old saying is never more true than when a new Certified Legal Nurse Consultant writes her first few medical-related case reports for attorney-clients. I’ve even had intelligent, seasoned CLNC consultants share how they look for every kind of reason to procrastinate when writing a report, including my favorite, “That toilet really needs cleaning right now.”
As expected, the much anticipated Star Wars movie The Force Awakens knocked it out of the park on its debut weekend. I haven’t yet seen this automatic blockbuster (despite Tom’s begging, pleading, cajoling and attempted bribery), but I was fortunate to experience the exhibition “Star Wars and the Power of Costume” in New York City, which features more than 70 costumes from those iconic movies.
Too often we wait for the right time before we step out and go for what we want. We wait to lose 50 pounds before we go to a coed gym. We wait for our children to graduate from college, then grad school and leave home (for good) before going on that coveted vacation. We wait for all the planets to align before we call that attorney. Wait, wait, wait!
Microsoft Office, including Word, PowerPoint and Excel all come with a myriad of menus that a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant uses on a regular basis. Those menus can take some time to navigate through. Even something as simple as printing a document can involve up to three mouse clicks (File, Print and Print). And all of this multiplicity of choices (or necessity of clicks) resides on the so-called Ribbon.
In my legal nurse consulting career I’ve met attorneys who I’ve loved and attorneys who I didn’t. But one of the most important lessons I learned came from seeing two attorneys who had just been going after each other in the courtroom like two raging bulls, casually scheduling a golf game and laughing together outside the courthouse at the end of the day.
Everybody today wants to be the expert and, being the expert myself in the legal nurse consulting industry, I get it. The quintessential expert, Einstein understood that being smart was just one part of the expert equation. It was his relentless research that qualified him as the expert he was. Genius begins, quite properly with research.
There’s nothing like name recognition to get an attorney-prospect’s attention. And I’m not talking about your name, I’m talking about a highly publicized medical malpractice, products liability or criminal case. Often the stories will mention the attorneys or law firms handling the case. If you want to scoop up headline cases for your legal nurse consulting business, simply watch and read the news. Tune in to both regional and national news stories. Often stories will mention the attorneys or law firms handling the case. Also subscribe to my blog for up-to-date reports on new health-related cases.
Lisa Rivera, RN, BSN, CLNC shares that while attending the CLNC 5-Day Certification Seminar she was contacted by an RN colleague. He asked if she had ever done any legal nurse consulting as he needed a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant to assist with screening a case for an attorney.
*The opinions and statements made by Vickie Milazzo, the founder of Medical-Legal Consulting Institute, Inc. are based on her experiences and expertise, should not be applied beyond the specific context provided, and do not guaranty or project actual results. Vickie Milazzo is no longer involved in the operations or management of the business, but is involved as an independent education consultant.
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