You want to make it your goal as a CLNC® consultant to be involved in every legal nurse consultant job from beginning to end. If the attorney does not fully engage you in a meaningful and intense way the probability of the attorney associating you with the outcome will be low. The result – fewer legal nurse consultant jobs in the future.
Use these 7 strategies for increasing your engagement in legal nurse consultant jobs:
- Communicate the specific CLNC services you offer. Make no assumptions – the attorney doesn’t always know what you can do. While you don’t want to bombard the attorney all at once with the 30 CLNC services you can provide, you do want to always be adding a new service to your legal nurse consultant jobs.
- Keep the communication lines open. Your attorney-clients don’t wake up thinking about you. It’s your job to retie the connection regularly so the attorney is thinking about how you can advance their case. Suzanne Arragg, RN, BSN, CDONA/LTC, CLNC shares, “I always discuss the status of the case with the attorney. This means I seek to understand the litigation stage of the case. Am I being requested to complete a pre-suit litigation analysis? Does the attorney only want a screening for merit? Or is the case in the peak of discovery, including depositions and mandatory settlement conferences? Understanding this information prompts me to offer additional CLNC services. For example, if notices of depositions for the person most knowledgeable or qualified have been received, I will offer to identify key issues and documents during my review that will be necessary for the attorney to reference in preparation for the deposition. I always explain the time and money that is saved in doing so by stating, ‘I’m already deeply immersed in the records, so I can pull key documents for you and annotate their significance in a separate memorandum.’ 99.9% of the time, the attorney is more than pleased to know this is something a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant can do. This approach naturally leads to receiving more cases from that same attorney. Additionally, if I have not heard from an attorney client in a couple of months, I reach out to ask about the previous case I was assigned. Did it resolve? Is there an additional analysis warranted based upon new records that may have arrived?”
- Prove your relevancy. Provide relevant and stellar work product. Susan Thibeault, DNAP, APRN, CRNA, EMT-P, CLNC advises, “Listen carefully to your attorney client. I assess how much they understand and know about a particular topic. If I detect that they don’t fully grasp the medical topic at hand, I ask questions to gauge their knowledge. Often, it is apparent that they’re missing key details or do not fully understand all of the relevant questions for the opposing experts’ depositions. I then offer to assist with deposition strategy. They appreciate even the simplest pointers, such as how to pronounce terms correctly, understanding what the terms mean and relevant deposition questions for opposing experts. Finding ways to fill the gaps of what they don’t know is been greatly appreciated.” When you’re consistently relevant in your involvement, the attorney will trust that you’ll be relevant when you recommend a new CLNC service.
- Highlight what the attorney is missing. Share a CLNC service you execute for other attorney-clients so the attorney will wonder what they’re missing. Knowing you’ve implemented this specific CLNC service for another attorney will get your current attorney-client thinking about how they can benefit too.
- Show the attorney what you can do. Showing is better than telling. If the attorney’s not yet buying into a new service, do it anyway. For example, give the attorney 10 sample deposition questions they are unlikely to think of on their own. While that attorney is the expert on the deposition process, you know more about what goes on in the real world of healthcare. You’ll think of questions the attorney won’t even imagine because the attorney’s never been inside the ED, OR, ICU, psych unit, LTC… like you have.
- Obtain feedback. Obtaining feedback ensures that you’re delivering legal nurse consulting work product that meets the attorney’s satisfaction. Feedback from the attorney is acknowledgement of your engagement, relevancy and importance. You can then use this acknowledgement when collaborating on future legal nurse consultant jobs with that same attorney-client.
- Incorporate the new CLNC service into future legal nurse consultant jobs. If you’re successful in conveying the relevancy of a new CLNC service to a current legal nurse consultant job, you’ll want to use that success in future cases. Recommend that service on new cases and remind the attorney how your engagement made a difference in previous legal nurse consultant jobs. Quote the attorney’s positive comments directly to promote your cause.
Use these 7 strategies to further enhance your engagement with attorney-clients in legal nurse consultant jobs.
Thanks to Suzanne and Susan for sharing their strategies for increasing engagement in legal nurse consultant jobs.
Success Is Yours,
P.S. Comment and share your strategies for increasing your engagement in legal nurse consultant jobs.
