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CLNC® Success Story: CLNC Carol Fridal Shares How She Knew She Was on Her Way to Building Her Legal Nurse Consulting Business When She Had 10 Cases

CLNC® Success Story: CLNC Consultant Carol Fridal Shares How She Knew She Was on Her Way to Building Her Legal Nurse Consulting Business When She Had 10 Cases

Vickie: I’d like to introduce you to Carol Fridal, Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. Carol, what motivated you to become a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant?

Carol: I saw advertisements for longer than I should have waited – a good five to ten years. I always said that legal nurse consulting was something I was interested in doing. As life progressed, and work progressed, it just came became more and more on my radar as something I was interested in pursuing. It intrigued me because as RNs we know the medical side. We’re reviewing medical records all the time and the thought of becoming certified as a CLNC consultant and to be able to work with attorneys to help them understand the patient’s journey became the forefront of something I was interested in doing.

Vickie: Were you thinking about this for a number of years before you actually became certified?

Carol: Sadly yes. It took me close to 10 years to get serious about it. And it seems like I’d see the advertisements for it. And I would read the advertisements and say, “Yep I’m interested in it.” And then life happened and it just kind of got pushed to the back burner. I finally got to the point where I was tired of pushing something I was interested in doing to the back burner and I pulled it to the forefront. I was finishing my masters and I just thought this was a new career path that was meant to be.

Vickie: So ultimately the timing was right. I think what you say about life happened is so common among many registered nurses. That’s why one of my favorite quotes is “It’s the start that stops most people.” A lot of people want to get started, and it’s important, if you’re interested, to know that you can do this on a part-time basis. You don’t have to go all in from the very beginning.

Carol: You bring up a very good point. You think about people talking about leaving the nursing career to do this full time, but it really works very well as a blended pathway. Depending upon what you want to do with your CLNC certification, there’s so many different options. What’s really great is that it opens up so many new doors.

Vickie: You seem to come across as confident. Were you confident going in? Did you have any fears about getting started as a CLNC consultant?

Carol: Most definitely I did. I lacked that self-confidence, and if anything, this has really created the self-confidence to know that I’m valued and my opinions are valued. It changes from just being with supervisors, peers or physicians, to now you’re working with people outside of healthcare industry, and they’re really looking at you and how you present yourself confidently. It’s been a great confidence builder.

Vickie: It’s always music to my ears when people tell me that growing their CLNC business gave them more confidence. How did you overcome some of those initial fears that you had?

Carol: You talked about calling on attorneys and I was used to not being able to get into their offices. The gatekeepers, as we call them, were not letting me in, and it just drove me to be a little bit more persistent. Once I got my first case, it became a lot more comfortable to ask questions and ask the attorneys to refer me to other attorneys. My marketing is probably not as robust as it should be, but it’s really word of mouth. If the attorney likes you they share your business card with somebody else and that’s really helped grow my business.

Vickie: What personal traits would you say have contributed to your success?

Carol: I’m pretty driven once I put my mind to do something. I’m not a quitter and I’m raising my kids not to be quitters. It’s not like you could just spend the money on this and say, “Oh it’s just not worth it.” You really had to commit to it once you invested in it. I think my traits are that I’m very accountable, I’m very respectable and I’m very driven when I decide to do something.

Vickie: That’s a quality many registered nurses have, and I always tell nurses who are just starting out that if you apply a lot of what you apply in the healthcare setting to your business, you can be successful. In healthcare, nurses make it happen. They are not afraid to take action and to get things done right. What would a health care setting be without the registered nurses?

You mentioned that when you had 10 active cases with attorneys, that’s when you knew you were on the way to building your CLNC business. I remember you telling me this. Can you share two of the strategies that were effective in helping you to get to those 10 active cases?

Carol: It seemed like once I got my first case, got through it and figured out the expectations, then when I got my second case it just seemed like the cases started coming in. It was almost like at what point do I say I’ve had enough? And it’s like no, I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to keep going and it was amazing how cases staggered in and filled in, almost like a deck of cards. It felt very comfortable, and each case whetted my appetite for a little bit more, so it didn’t seem like it was overwhelming. Doing this, as well as working, I kept thinking” When am I going to be overwhelmed?” And it really never happened. The attorneys are so easy to work with and they’re so forgiving with your schedule that it was very comfortable to get those first 10 cases. Then the cases kept feeding themselves almost like an analogy of watering a plant. You water a plant and it grows. You nurture your cases and they just keep multiplying.

Vickie: I always say in the CLNC Certification Program that the work product (the reports that you write and the opinions that you render to these attorneys) is the best marketing strategy. That’s what I’m hearing from you – the more you got active with cases, the more attorneys know you and hear about you and want to do business with you.

Carol: That’s correct and it’s nice when they say they like your work. For a brief report I wrote, the attorney loved the product so much and expressed “I don’t know where the information came from” Well it came from the medical records and it just flowed together in a report so comfortably that it was fun to write.

Vickie: You just said something that is so obvious to you, to me and to many Certified Legal Nurse Consultants, but it’s not obvious to attorneys because your attorney said, “I don’t know where all this came from.” and you said, “It came from the medical records.” A lot of times nurses take their knowledge and their understanding of the electronic medical records for granted. They assume that what they know, other people like attorneys know, and that’s just not the case is it?

Carol: That’s true, and along with the standards of care, RNs know what’s right and wrong. But when you start to weave the standards into the medical record, the report almost writes itself.

Vickie: What do you love most about your CLNC business?

Carol: I love the independence that it gives me. I love working with the attorneys, and I really like writing the reports. You do your initial opinion and it’s a verbal opinion. Then when they get to the point where they want you to write that brief report, you’re really pulling everything together for that attorney. You’re writing it like they’re a lay person, so you’re writing it down to a level that anybody can understand. That is a very rewarding piece of the work. Again, I love working with the attorneys.

Vickie: I heard you comment earlier about the respect that you receive from attorneys, and I’m sure that’s another factor that you love.

Carol: It is. It’s that working relationship that healthcare used to have, but now everybody’s struggling so much with staffing, you don’t get that respect and the time to have those conversations – the critical thinking conversations. You do get to have those with the attorneys.

Vickie: You also mentioned that you love writing the reports and I personally really enjoy hearing that. But one of the things that I always like to remind new RNs interested in legal nurse consulting is that attorneys are not like nursing instructors. You don’t have to be the perfect writer, and I like the way you said that you’re writing those reports as though you were writing it for just any lay person out there – basic so anybody can understand stand them. The message I want people to hear is that report writing should not feel overwhelming. You’re just taking your opinion and putting it on paper for the attorney.

Carol: That’s true and the attorneys are great. They help guide you as to what they want in the report. More times than not you have more information than what they want, so you have to hone it down to the basics. But the attorneys are great in guiding you as to what they’re looking for specifically in the report. Instead of being scared of the attorney, they almost become kind of your best friend because you have that fluid relationship with them.

Vickie: It’s very collaborative. Anytime you own a business there’s going to be changes in your career. Have you had changes in your personal life, as a result of owning your CLNC business?

Carol: I have. Everything comes with rewards. There are financial rewards to this. You’re owning your own business, your overhead is different and you’re not having to worry about this, that or the other thing. The money is good. It is nice that you can take an extra vacation, buy a new car or upgrade your home. So there are financial benefits.

It’s interesting when I’ve been in court, sometimes the defense or the opposing attorney tries to make that a big deal, but it shouldn’t be because you’re putting yourself out there on the line, giving your opinions, and you have to be pretty sure of yourself when you’re giving those opinions

Vickie: Definitely. You also mentioned earlier that you really enjoyed the independence. How has that changed your life?

Carol: Instead of working 50-hour work weeks, I’m working much less. I work about sixty percent of a full-time job so that I can devote the rest of my time to this and I can do this whether we’re taking a vacation, driving down the road or just sitting at home having a day off. The flexibility of being able to do your CLNC work anywhere is really nice.

Vickie: How would you say working as an independent consultant is different from working inside the healthcare system?

Carol: Again you have your own self to be true to. At work I have guidelines I follow. Working at home I still have guidelines, but they’re my guidelines, they’re not my employer’s guidelines. So you do have that independence to set the guidelines for what you would like your business to look like.

Vickie: You get to define it and I’ve heard other CLNC consultants say that. I know every Certified Legal Nurse Consultant is so different in how they see their business and how they see the goals for their business. Being able to define that for yourself is a pretty sweet spot to be in, especially at a later stage in your nursing career.

Carol: This is true. If I would have done this like I should have 20 years ago, I probably would have a much bigger business. But now, a little bit later in life, it’s kind of like “What do I want out of the business?” You can hone it to as big or as little as you really want it to be.

Vickie: That’s excellent. Carol, what is your definition of success?

Carol: Well there’s lots of different things I can think of, but I think the most important to me is my self-satisfaction. Asking myself “Am I doing the right thing at the right time?” I view myself as an advocate for my patients because I believe that we’re documenting the story or the event that the patient is going through while they’re in the hospital. So when I’m looking at medical records I’m being a patient advocate and that’s really what gives me the most pleasure. It’s being that voice for the patient and my success is just enjoying what I do. If we lose that love for our work and career it’s sad. This has really brought back that love and enjoyment again.

Vickie: That’s great. I think that’s true for almost all professionals – introducing something new and different into your professional life always adds extra enthusiasm to it. I think it’s okay for a nurse to say, “I’ve been in this nursing situation for a long time and it’s okay to want to be excited about doing something different.”

Thank you so much Carol and great success to you, and thank you for sharing your personal experiences here with us today.

Carol: Thank you Vickie for inviting me, and thanks for being my role model over the years. It’s been 20 years because I’ve been doing this now just about 12 years, and the 10 years before that that I kept looking at the program. Thanks for being there and opening this opportunity for nurses.

Vickie: Thank you.

P.S. Comment here to congratulate Carol on her CLNC Success.

P.P.S. Read more CLNC Success Stories and send your CLNC Success Story to [email protected].

One thought on “CLNC® Success Story: CLNC Consultant Carol Fridal Shares How She Knew She Was on Her Way to Building Her Legal Nurse Consulting Business When She Had 10 Cases

  1. Hi Carol,
    This was very uplifting and very positive. I as well had thought of being a CLNC® consultant but life with 2 young children made it impossible at that time. I am near the retirement age and decided to make the move to become a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. You are my inspiration. Thank you. Ann

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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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