Legal nurse consultant jobs vary widely, depending on the employer and the kind of legal case requiring a consultant. In general, a legal nurse consultant will offer her opinion on a medical- or health-related issue for a legal case. Legal nurse consultant jobs include reviewing medical records and working as an expert witness during a courtroom trial. She can work for lawyers, insurance companies, hospitals, nursing homes, day cares, or a host of private companies, such as pharmaceutical companies.
Typically, legal nurse consultant jobs will change according to the types of legal cases involved. In most cases, the consultant may be useful for any case in which health, medicine, or the practice of medicine is at issue. For example, a medical malpractice case may use a legal nurse consultant for proving or disproving negligence on the part of a nurse or doctor. In a personal injury case, she may work to prove or disprove the fact that an injury was caused by a vehicular accident.
Many times, legal nurse consultant jobs will include working with companies associated with the pharmaceutical, food, or personal hygiene industries. A professional in this field may help lawyers, insurance companies, or affected individuals determine whether or not a particular product caused a specific injury. She may also work on environmental cases, helping lawyers determine the effect of certain substances, such as toxic chemicals, asbestos, or lead.
Legal nurse consultant jobs usually entail looking at the medical records of a person or a group of people. She may be asked to talk to lawyers about the significance of the information in the records as well. In some cases, one of the legal nurse consultant jobs is to summarize the medical records in lay person’s terms.
In some cases, particularly workers’ compensation cases, one of the legal nurse consultant jobs involves creating plans for an injured employee. In those cases, she must understand how the injured worker will be restricted in her job duties, based on the worker’s injury. For example, if the worker has an injured back, the consultant may create a plan wherein the worker cannot lift any items heavier than a certain weight.
One of the most interesting legal nurse consultant jobs is working with lawyers during the course of a trial. A professional in this position can work as an expert witness, answering questions from lawyers on both sides of a case. In the alternative, she may analyze medically related testimony and help lawyers think of good questions during the trial. In some cases, she may be asked to answer questions in a deposition or help a lawyer fill out interrogatory questions.