Legal Nurse Services’ certified legal nurse consultants can provide thirty types of services for attorneys. The professional nurses can screen or investigate medical malpractice cases for merit. The nurse can define the applicable Standards of Care, deviations from or adherence to the Standard of Care for all health care disciplines. A legal nurse consultant can define the applicable Standards of Care for only the discipline of Nursing. Due to years of nursing experience, the certified legal nurse consultants are highly qualified to assess alleged damages and / or injuries and identify the factors that caused or contributed to the alleged damages and / or injuries. Nurses are the primary keepers of the medical record in health care. The legal nurse consultant has the expertise to organize, tab, paginate, summarize, translate and interpret medical records. This can also include identifying and reviewing the most relevant medical records, hospital policies and procedures, and other essential documents and tangible items important to the case. When reviewing medical records, the legal nurse consultant can identify and recommend other potential defendants in the case. The professional nurse must constantly conduct research to stay up to date. The certified legal nurse consultant can conduct authoritative literature searches and integrate the literature and standards / guidelines into the case analysis. This also includes researching and analyzing the validity and reliability of research studies relied on by all parties. Legal nurse consultants have the ability to assist attorneys in expanding their medical libraries with authoritative medical literature. As a consulting expert, a certified legal nurse consultant can interview plaintiff, and defense clients, key witnesses and experts to assist the attorney in building the case. A legal nurse consultant can identify, locate, and interface with the testifying health care experts needed, including certified life care planners, and analyze and compare the expert witness’ reports and other work products. In healthcare settings, nurses are the liaison for all parties. In the legal system, the nurse consultant can serve as liaison between the attorney, healthcare providers, testifying experts, parties, witnesses, and other consultants. Legal Nurse Services can also coordinate and attend independent medical examinations. The certified legal nurse consultant can assist attorneys with preparing interrogatories, deposition or trial examination and exhibits, review and draft responses to various legal documents and correspondence. The nurse consultant can attend depositions, trials, review panels, arbitrations and mediation hearings. The legal nurse consultant can assist attorneys by helping to prepare witnesses and experts for depositions and trial, develop written reports for the attorney to use as study tools and coordinate and assist in facilitating focus groups or mock trials.
