From the President's Desk
Searching for a legal nurse consultant?
 The
attorney should look for a nurse who has at least 5 years of clinical
experience. A successful legal
nurse consultant is analytical, organized, and can communicate
well. Since nurses are often involved in patient education, we
are able to use these teaching techniques to assist legal personnel
in comprehending medical issues. The attorney should look for
a nurse with the initials of LNCC after his or her name. Our certification
process, which meets the rigorous standards of other professional
nursing associations’ certification processes, is geared
to the nurse with expertise in this field, and confers the initials
“LNCC” for “legal nurse consultant certified.”
In order to sit for this examination, the legal nurse consultant
must have performed 2000 hours of consulting in the previous 3
years and have 5 years or more of clinical nursing experience.
A legal nurse consultant is
not a paralegal.
Paralegals assist attorneys with all aspects of litigation, not
necessarily confined to cases with medical issues. Legal nurse
consultants may do some of the tasks that paralegals perform,
such as organizing
medical records and doing timelines, but the medical background
of the nurse is valuable in different ways. The legal nurse consultant
will help the attorney by spotting the information in the medical
record that has direct bearing on the lawsuit. We may be involved
in any aspect of litigation when medical issues have to be identified,
such as personal injury, medical malpractice, workers compensation,
products liability, employment law involving healthcare professionals,
or toxic tort claims. Legal nurse consultants also work with attorneys
who handle criminal or matrimonial cases-in short, whenever there
is a need to serve as a bridge between law and medicine.
Patricia Iyer MSN RN LNCC
is a Past President of the American
Association of Legal Nurse Consultants and the chief
editor of the second edition of the Principles
and Practices of Legal Nurse Consulting. See also the
AANLC Certification Board's
position statement on certification.
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