Memphis firm certifies nurses to take the stand
The Cochran Firm, with office locations nationwide
By Jane Roberts
Monday, March 17, 2008
For years, when Elizabeth Rudolph -- a registered nurse and attorney -- spoke to national nurses' groups about liability issues, a funny thing would happen.
Invariably, the people who came to the podium afterward would comment politely on her talk, then start grilling her on the opportunities for nurses as expert witnesses.
"Nurses need more options," said Rudolph, a Vanderbilt-educated nurse and lawyer who works part-time as a legal nurse consultant at the Cochran firm in Memphis. "They want to have more ways to use their nursing skills other than traditional nursing.
"I'm a nurse. Most nurses are trained to practice in traditional nursing, but that's not all there is out there."
In November 2006, she started the National Center for Legal Nurse Consulting, a Memphis-based business that certifies nurses as expert witnesses and legal consultants.
Mike Maple/ The Commercial Appeal.
Elizabeth Rudolph, a lawyer and nurse, has started a business teaching other nurses how to be expert witnesses and legal consultants.
When she offered her first certification seminar last year in Little Rock, Ark., 50 nurses showed up.
Her clients more than doubled last year. By the end of this year, she expects they will have quadrupled.
"My goal is expand the business so nurses can see the options to empower them, to give them flexibility, to open doors."
Rudolph offers the course in three formats: one-day seminars, which she leads; e-courses, which she wrote; or lectures on CD, which she taped at her kitchen table.
"I tried to think how I could do this to suit nurses' needs and be affordable and flexible," she said.
The course -- an eight-hour curriculum -- covers the ins and outs of starting a legal nurse consulting business and marketing it, plus a general primer in how law cases work.
Nurses who pass the test at the end of the seminar are certified to work in the profession, often earning $100 an hour for research or $200 if they testify, she said.
Besides offering clients a year of unlimited e-mail correspondence, Rudolph also manages a directory of certified consultants available through legalnurselocator.com.
There is no federal certifying agency for legal nurse consultants, and nurses can work in the field without certification, said Julianne Bendle, executive director of the American Association of Legal Nurse Consultants, a nonprofit that oversees certification through a program accredited by the American Board of Nursing Specialties.
Certification is contentious, she said, because the specialty is relatively new and is used outside the traditional nursing or hospital setting.
"There can be confusion in the marketplace about the various programs out there. They are cropping up every day."
She recommends applicants have at least five years experience in nursing and choose certification programs based on their own learning styles.
"It's a hard field to get into. You have to have entrepreneurial skills, and you have to generate jobs. While you see a lot of growth in nurses who are becoming certified, there are many, many who don't continue with it for very long."
The industry sprang up in the last 25 years as malpractice and nursing home negligence cases have expanded, said Mark Benfield, principal at Bailey and Benfield in Memphis.
"I think law firms have realized they can save money and resources by having a nurse review the large volumes of medical records that are involved in these cases," he said.
"For the law firm, it means you're not wasting resources figuring out whether you have a case or not."
Rudolph says seasoned nurses can spot the medical issues lawyers often are not trained to understand.
"If it's a birth injury case, you want to see if the nursing or medical care was provided correctly," she said.
The answers lie in medical records.
"Nurse consultants are needed in any case where there are medical records," Rudolph said.
"It can be personal injury or medical malpractice. Those cases are all about the medical records.
"But also, legal nurse consultants are needed in Social Security disability, will contests and workers comp cases."
The full-time legal nurse consultant in Benfield's office also attends depositions and helps the lawyers understand medical terminology and procedures.
"If I'm going through volumes of medical records and come across something I don't understand, it's easier for me to go sit down with my nurse consultant than pick up a phone and call a medical expert who hopefully will get time to call me back," Benfield said.
About 90 percent of his work is in medical malpractice and nursing home negligence. The cases, he said, can cost a firm as much as $100,000 on the front end.
Knowing which to reject because they are not defendable is part of staying in business, he said.
National Center for Legal Nurse Consulting
President, founder: Elizabeth Rudolph
More information: legalnurselocator.com
Phone: 496-5447
Next seminars: 8:30 to 4 p.m., March 29, Holiday Inn Select, 5795 Poplar;
April 12, Holiday Inn Opryland Airport, 2200 Elm Hill Pike, Nashville.
-- Contact Jane Roberts at 529-2512.
