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minimum legal nurse consulting fees

3 Reasons to Never Charge Minimum Legal Nurse Fees

One of the building blocks of your business as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant is training your attorney-clients to give you adequate time to do justice to a medical malpractice case or any type of personal injury case. Setting a minimum fee (e.g., 20 hours minimum) sounds intuitive, but it’s not. Here are three reasons to never charge attorneys minimum legal nurse consulting fees:

  1. A minimum fee can be a turn off to an attorney-prospect you’ve just met and the result is you never even get the professional relationship off the ground. It’s like going to a restaurant where you want to split a meal with a friend and the waiter says, “That’s not going to be enough, you need to order more.” The waiter doesn’t know you, doesn’t know your eating habits and it’s not his business how much you want to order anyway. The pressure to order something you don’t want or need is offensive and you may never return to that restaurant. The same holds true with attorneys and how they feel about you charging them a minimum fee. If the attorney only wants you to spend ten hours on a case that’s a strong ten hours you have to demonstrate how you can benefit the attorney’s case. The attorney’s not a foie gras and doesn’t want to be force fed a set number of billable hours.
  2. When you charge an attorney a minimum fee no matter his preference, the relationship becomes all about you and what you want and need. The most successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultants always put their attorney-clients first and their personal needs second. While you certainly don’t want to give your time away for free (e.g., spend 20 hours and only bill for 10 hours), you’ll be surprised how much good stuff you can provide the attorney in a brief time. Soon enough the attorney is proclaiming, “Just do whatever you need to do on this case” because she trusts you’re looking out for her.
  3. Minimum fees chip away at the trust that is needed to build a lifetime relationship. They can create suspicions, and set you up for having the attorney distrust your recommendations and nitpick your invoices. Let’s face it, how does the attorney know you spent 10 or 12 hours on the case? The attorney has to trust you to the core. Trust is earned when all suspicions are off the table.

Attorneys don’t always know what they need, but if you don’t give them what they think they need, you’ll never have the opportunity to teach them what you know they really need. Eliminate minimum fees and you’ll have plenty of opportunities to train your attorney-clients regarding the comprehensive reports and extensive legal nurse consulting services you can provide.

Just one attorney-client can pay your entire mortgage over time (One of mine did!). It pays to nurture attorney-client relationships and let go of minimum fees in your legal nurse consulting business.

Success Is Yours!

P.S. Comment and share your opinions on minimum fees as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant.

P.P.S. For more on legal nurse consulting fees click here.

One thought on “3 Reasons to Never Charge Minimum Legal Nurse Fees

  1. My philosophy is that I like things to be as simple as possible. So I decided to make my billing process very simple. I have one retainer fee (an equivalent to a typical initial case review) in the beginning of the attorney-client relationship with hourly fees thereafter. Any supply and travel expenses, etc. are all at cost and a flat fee for expert locating. So far no complaints and no billing issues. 🙂

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*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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