From the President's Desk
Paralegals and
Legal Nurse Consultants:
Perfect Together?
 Research
by Pat Iyer has provided some surprising information about the
functions of legal nurse consultants and paralegals. Data was
collected from paralegals, legal nurse consultants (LNCs) and
attorneys in order to define the most common activities performed
by paralegals and legal nurse consultants. The 76 paralegals ranged
from being students to those with 19 years of experience. The
legal nurse consultants (27 in number) had 0-9 years of experience
as LNCs. The perceptions of 16 attorneys who had 1-29 years of
experience were also elicited. Each person was asked to review
a list of functions and to indicate if each function was an activity
which a paralegal or legal nurse consultant (or both) could perform.
Despite wide differences
in experience and perspectives, a consensus emerged among all
of the groups. The most commonly identified legal nurse consultant
activities were:
-
Identify medical
management issues
-
Identify medical
issues not addressed or explained in the records
-
Identify malingerers
-
Point out potential
medical complications of injuries
-
Identify medical
malpractice
The
most common activities attributed to the role of the paralegal
were:
Paralegals were more
easily able to identify functions of their own profession than
they were able to define the role of the legal nurse consultant,
and vice versa. Experienced paralegals, and the attorneys, identified
more functions of the legal nurse consultant than did less experienced
paralegals. One of the conclusions of this data was that rather
than being in competition with each other, legal nurse consultants
and paralegals perform important functions that complement each
other. For example, analysis of key medical issues by a legal
nurse consultant cannot occur without the appropriate retrieval
and organization of medical records by a paralegal. The identification
of costs associated with an injury can be competently performed
by a paralegal, allowing the legal nurse consultant to use medical
expertise to focus on the clinical issues in the case.
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