One of my favorite attorney-clients represented a building owner who was being sued for more than $20 million dollars. Negligence was asserted due to a substantial crack in the sidewalk that resulted in the fall of a 30-year-old man. The gentleman died 27 days after the fall as a result of a subdural hematoma.
I was mentoring a CLNC consultant who is working with a new managing partner at one of the law firms she consults with. This law firm is her biggest client and she’s always worked well with the prior managing partner. He trusted her and pretty much gave her free reign in just about everything she did, from budgeting for cases to the work product she produced. From her point of view, it was a perfect relationship.
Krista M. Bradley, RN, BSN, CLNC, shares that her cousin, a fourth year law student, learned about the CLNC Certification in law school, wrote a paper about it and recommended – at a family party – that she become a CLNC consultant. Krista also shares that she received her first case from another attorney even before she completed the CLNC 6-Day Certification Seminar.
We all have possessions and we’re all attached to those possessions at varying levels. Some people are defined by their house, car or their 5-inch heels.
Successful CLNC consultants see opportunities where someone else might see only a problem. For example, one Certified Legal Nurse Consultant testifies for three law firms. They are so impressed with her that they want her and only her. She thinks she has a problem, while I see an opportunity.
Frequently I find myself sitting in our conference room with people who know a lot more about an issue than I do. That doesn’t, however, make them the smartest people in the room. I like to think that I know what I don’t know. And because I know what I don’t know, what I do know is how to ask questions and to challenge the experts to get to relevant analysis and impactful decisions.
Reminders are a necessary part of calendars, and for busy Certified Legal Nurse Consultants, calendars are a necessary part of life. Luckily, many calendaring apps give you the option to set an aural (and sometimes vibrating) “reminder” or “alert” for a calendar event. Alerts help ensure that you don’t miss that appointment with your favorite attorney-client or to make that important call marketing your legal nurse consulting business to a new attorney. You can create an alert as a reminder for an event that is anywhere from minutes to hours, to days away.
That’s a great question, and I was just about to get to that. I’m a great believer in lists and outlines. Many of my CLNC amigos use the convenient automatic outline and bulleted/numbered list function in Microsoft Word to create reports for their attorney-clients. When you’re creating or editing a list, the handy Tab button allows you to decrease a bullet or drop an outline level (or increase a level if you use Shift-Tab). It’s a fast and furious way to organize your data and your thinking.
I just critiqued a report from a legal nurse consultant. It was obvious she had a lot of expertise to offer the attorney-client and that she had done her research. The problem: the noise factor was so high that I knew the attorney would likely miss the important message. She was all over the map, with thoughts written down at random. No logical sequence of analysis and no conclusion.
A CEO of another company just called to thank me for doing business with her. We were on the phone together less than two minutes. She runs one of Houston’s largest woman-owned companies so I know she’s busy. Time invested – two minutes. Payoff – priceless.
*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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