Help For Your Firm
Why does your firm need the services of a CLNC?
Maybe you've been doing fine without a consulting legal nurse service. But consider this: access to a medical expert like a CLNC can expand the world of cases you can tackle-successfully, and with ease.
You and your staff are experts in law. But when you're dealing with any case that involves medical matters, you're dealing with terminology, documentation, and professional issues that you most likely have a limited knowledge about.
A CLNC will bridge the gap between your legal knowledge and the vast amounts of medical information that will enable you to give your case the most thorough attention possible.
Cost-Effective Medical Expertise
Hiring a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant is a cost-effective way to access information about the inner workings of the healthcare system. Whether you need litigation support services like interpretation of records or preparation of interrogatories, or in finding and interviewing expert witnesses, a CLNC is a source for all the medical expertise you need-without you having to employ an MD at high hourly rates. Quite often, a CLNC is the better way to go, because they are steeped in detail - just the sort of detail your case rests upon!
CLNC - a Definition
A Certified Legal Nurse Consultant is a Registered Nurse who combines expertise as a healthcare professional with specialized medical-legal training to consult on medical-related cases. You and your legal staff are the experts on legal issues--the CLNC is the expert on the healthcare system and the team member with specific medical knowledge.
What services can Shirley Gorman, CLNC provide for your firm?
Locating and Interfacing with Testifying Expert Witnesses
Shirley Gorman's roots in the medical community give her access to medical professionals who can act as expert witnesses in your case. Shirley's pool of potential experts is much greater than just those in nursing-expert deposition or testimony from specialists of all types will aid your case in precisely the area you need it to.
- Interviewing plaintiff and defense clients, key witnesses and experts
- Serving as liaison between attorney and healthcare providers
- Serving as liaison between attorney and expert witnesses and other consultants
- Preparation of witnesses (specialists, nursing)
- Expert deposition preparation, trial witness preparation
Litigation Support Services
Even before you decide to take a case, a CLNC can help your firm. Let Shirley Gorman assess the essentials of a medical case prior to your work on it, and she'll save you the potential costs of getting involved when there is insufficient or questionable evidence.
Once on a case, Shirley will save you and your paralegals many hours by swiftly negotiating her way through medical records and reports, and breaking them down into summaries and easy-to-understand language for you and your staff.
- Screening of cases for merit and strengths and weaknesses
- Identifying and assessing alleged damages and/or injuries
- Summarizing, translating, and interpreting medical records and autopsy reports
- Preparing interrogatories
- Preparing deposition and examination (cross or direct) questions
- Developing written reports (briefs), charts, timelines
Independent Medical Exams
Integral to most Workman's Comp and many insurance-related cases, IME's are invaluable sources of information in medical-legal cases. Certified Legal Nurse Consultants are trained to be the eyes and ears of the attorney, observing and recording important information during Independent Medical Exams.
- Coordinating, attending, and reporting on independent medical exams
Question:
Who attends your IME's?
- How do you know what they are assessing?
- Do they consider ALL the factors at play?
- Is any stone left unturned?
It's not surprising: The clients of plaintiff attorneys value having a CLNC with them in the examination room!
Standards of Care
Most legal professionals fight Standards of Care cases by the book - but nothing can compare to first-hand knowledge of what standards of care really mean in a practical setting. With over two decades of hands-on experience in quality assurance activities at hospitals and clinics, Shirley Gorman is uniquely qualified to identify issues regarding quality of care and to assess deviations from these standards.
For litigation support services organized by the type of case your firm is handling, please see Help for Your Case.
Special Message to Paralegals
Your education prepared you for legal terminology, paperwork, and processes - not medical issues. When you're faced with a case that requires a deep investigation of medical issues, don't let your stellar work suffer from lack of specialized knowledge.
You don't know what you don't know... and ignorance in the legal field is NOT bliss!
Hiring Shirley Gorman for her litigation support services—interpreting and investigating medical documents, translating medical terminology, even preparing interrogatories—will be well worth the financial investment. Shirley can flip the light switch on—in relatively little time—so you'll see clearly… and so that you can do your job.
Shirley especially likes to be of assistance to paralegals, having a soft spot in her heart for them due to their huge, often unheralded, contributions in a legal firm. So don't hesitate - call and you'll talk to a very sympathetic legal nurse consultant. Shirley can help, even in this first consultative call, when she'll answer any questions that you pose about your medical-legal case. No charge.
Shirley Gorman, RN, CLNC provides consulting legal nurse services to attorneys and law firms, plaintiffs and defendants, insurance companies and other organizations, in and around Fort Collins, Colorado including Greeley, Windsor, Denver, and Boulder and Southern Wyoming, including Laramie and Cheyenne.
