Legal Nurse Consulting

About This Course

If you’ve dreamed of using your medical background as the basis for a new and lucrative career, you might want to consider legal nurse consulting. Attorneys are increasingly relying on experienced nurses to help them understand and resolve complex medical cases or claims.

If you're interested in working as a legal nurse consultant to share your expertise in nursing and health care with others, this course will introduce you to the specific legal fields where your skills and knowledge are most needed.

You'll receive a step-by-step introduction to areas such as tort law, criminal law, medical malpractice, civil and criminal litigation practice, legal research and writing, legal ethics, personal injury, and more. By the end of the course, you'll have a solid foundation in several different areas of law to help you understand exactly what you can do to assist attorneys in all phases of civil and criminal litigation.

You'll also learn how to create your very own legal nurse consulting practice from the ground up, including strategic advice on creating a business plan and marketing your services to interested attorneys.

About The Instructor

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Neal Bevans.

Neal Bevans is a former Assistant District Attorney. A veteran of over 150 trials, Bevans has tried every major felony from rape, murder, and narcotics to armed robbery. One of his cases was televised nationally on Court TV. He has a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Georgia (Order of the Barrister) and has been a college instructor for over 10 years. He has also presented numerous seminars to medical professionals about the legal field, including training seminars for legal nurse consultants and sexual assault nurse examiners. In addition to practicing real estate law, he also worked as a title examiner and bought and sold real estate investment properties. An author of fiction and nonfiction material, his textbook Criminal Law and Procedure for Paralegals, was published in 2002. His second textbook, Tort Law for Legal Assistants, was published in 2003. He has also published numerous magazine articles about many aspects of the legal and medical fields, including articles focusing on developing a legal nurse consulting practice. He is also a contributing columnist to Legal Assistant Today magazine.

Syllabus

A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week 1

Wednesday - Lesson 01

In our first lesson, you’ll learn not only what a legal nurse consultant is, but also how to become one. You’ll see how legal nurse consultants are the next big trend in the legal profession, and how you can use your medical background to launch a new and very lucrative second career.

Friday - Lesson 02

If one of your major stumbling blocks to becoming a legal nurse consultant is that you don’t know enough about the American judicial system, this lesson will demystify the entire process. In today's lesson, you'll learn about the legal system and see that the law isn’t as complicated as you may have feared. We'll also look at how to put this theoretical knowledge to practice when you start your legal nurse consulting practice.

Week 2

Wednesday - Lesson 03

Ever wonder how lawyers get to be lawyers? Or how law firms can afford to pay consultants? In this lesson, we'll take a look inside law firms and reveal the financial arrangements between partners and associate attorneys. We'll also explore the jargon you’ll need to negotiate top fees from plaintiffs and insurance defense firms. You’ll see exactly why there's such a demand for legal nurse consultants and how to craft a resume that will make an attorney sit up and take notice.

Friday - Lesson 04

In this lesson, we'll take a look at a civil case from start to finish. By the time we finish, you’ll understand each phase of a civil case and know exactly where a legal nurse consultant fits into the process. You’ll also learn some important terminology that will allow you to interact with attorneys and let them know that you're a legally trained professional. This lesson will give you the solid foundation in civil law that you must have before you can launch your new career as a legal nurse consultant.

Week 3

Wednesday - Lesson 05

Are you a little anxious about starting your own business? Does the thought of charging fees, keeping records, and creating a business plan leave you with sweaty palms? Not after this lesson. We’ll go step-by-step through the process of creating a legal nurse consulting practice, from the equipment that you’ll need to the services that you'll offer law firms. You’ll learn how much you should charge and proven methods of marketing yourself to the legal community. We'll also go through the questions that lawyers are likely to ask if they're thinking about hiring you.

Friday - Lesson 06

Do shows like Law & Order and CSI get it right? Usually not. In this lesson, we'll look through the evidence to see why most TV shows get it wrong. Want to know the difference between circumstantial evidence and direct evidence? This is where you'll learn to distinguish between different types of evidence, and how to use this knowledge to your advantage when you communicate with attorneys. You’ll come out of this lesson able to tell your friends what's right (and wrong!) about legal TV shows.

Week 4

Wednesday - Lesson 07

Want to know exactly what you'll be doing as a legal nurse consultant? You’ll learn exactly what services you'll provide to attorneys—especially what to charge for them, and how to perform them. Most attorneys ask legal nurse consultants to screen cases for them. You’ll learn about screening in this lesson, and you’ll look at specific examples of the type of report you should give an attorney. How do you review a file? Locate an expert witness? Draft an opinion letter? In this lesson, you'll use actual, written templates for all of these activities, and more.

Friday - Lesson 08

Why do you need to know how to do legal research? For one thing, it’s how you can help a lawyer win a case. For another, it’s a great way to get more business. You’ll learn legal research from the ground up in this lesson—you may be surprised by how straightforward the topic really is. When you finish this lesson, you be confident that you can walk into a law library anywhere and know exactly where to go and what to do.

Week 5

Wednesday - Lesson 09

Now that you’ve built your skill set, you’re ready to tackle the two types of cases where you’ll make most of your income as a legal nurse consultant: Personal injury and medical malpractice cases. We'll look at how these cases are brought and why you are absolutely essential in making them successful. Where do you fit in as an expert in medical malpractice cases? How do you help attorneys prepare these cases? More importantly, how can you show prospective attorneys that they're more likely to win their case with a legal nurse consultant than without one? This lesson answers these questions and many more.

Friday - Lesson 10

Legal nurse consultants are becoming important in criminal law, too. If you're drawn to cases where you can make a real difference—rape and child molestation, for instance—then this lesson will help you master the basics of criminal law. You’ll learn how prosecutors bring cases, the function of grand juries, how a criminal trial comes together, and what it takes to work with the victims of these terrible crimes. You’ll also get an inside look at a world very few people ever get to see.

Week 6

Wednesday - Lesson 11

Picture yourself walking into a courtroom as the right hand of a trial attorney. You help pick the jury. You suggest questions that the attorney should ask medical witnesses. You confer with the lawyer during the trial. This lesson teaches you how to master all of these skills. You'll learn the intricacies of your exciting new profession and realize the potentials that you, as a legal nurse consultant, now have.

Friday - Lesson 12

In our last lesson, we'll look at two final skill sets that you must have to build a successful legal nurse consultant practice: Medical literature review for attorneys and networking. You’ll see how to perform medical research both in libraries and online. The Internet resources available to legal nurse consultants are amazing in their diversity. When you complete this lesson, you’ll be able to conduct medical literature research right from your computer at home. You’ll see how to bill attorneys for this service and then how to use it to generate more business. This lesson also shows you how to network in the legal community and gives you proven techniques for building a lucrative legal nurse consulting practice.

Requirements

Experience and training as a registered nurse, nurse practitioner, physician's assistant, or other medical professional. Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader).