*The Legal Nurse Consultant practices the art and science of his or her nursing specialty in a variety of settings, including law firms, government offices, insurance companies, hospital risk management departments, and as self-employed practitioners. The legal nurse consultant is a liaison between the legal and health care communities and provides consultation and education to legal, health care, and appropriate other professional in areas such as personal injury, product liability, medical malpractice, workers’ compensation, toxic torts, risk management, medical professional licensure investigation, and criminal law.

*Parameters of legal nurse consulting practice may include:

• Facilitating communications and thus strategizing with the legal professional for successful resolutions between parties involved in health care-related litigation or other medical-legal or health care-legal matters.
• Educating attorneys and/or others involved in the legal process regarding the health care facts and issues of a case or a claim.
• Researching and integrating health care and nursing literature as it relates to the health care facts and issues of a case or a claim.
• Reviewing, summarizing, and analyzing medical records and other pertinent health care and legal documents and comparing and correlating them to the allegations.
• Assessing issues of damages and causation relative to liability within the legal process.
• Identifying, locating, evaluating, and conferring with expert witnesses.
• Interviewing witnesses and parties pertinent to the health care issues in collaboration with legal professionals.
• Drafting legal documentations in medically related cases under the supervision of an attorney.
• Developing collaborative case strategies with those practicing within the legal system.
• Providing support during discovery, depositions, trial and other legal proceedings.
• Supporting the process of adjudication of legal claims.

* From: "Legal Nurse Consulting: Principles and Practice" (1st ed.), (1998), Boca Raton: CRC Press