Legal Nurse Consultant

Tort Reformand the Legal Nurse Consultant
By Vickie Milazzo

Does tort reform limit opportunities for legal nurse consultants? Absolutely not. As the pioneer in the field of legal nurse consulting, I have watched this profession grow and flourish during the last 21 years. Throughout that time many states have implemented some kind of reform, mostly involving non-economic damages (pain and suffering). Yet in every state where tort reform is in place, legal nurse consultants are actively and successfully practicing and growing their businesses by leaps and bounds. We will continue to enjoy even more electrifying growth over the next ten years.

Here's why:

1. The number of U.S. attorneys continues to increase annually. Currently there are 1,058,662* attorneys in the U.S. and, as the Houston Chronicle states, at least "25 percent deal with medical malpractice and personal injury cases."

2. At the national level, the U.S. Senate said "no" to a tort reform bill that sought to limit non-economic damages (pain and suffering) in malpractice suits to $250,000. Even if the Senate bill had passed, legal nurse consultants would still have plenty of cases to work on.

3. Most medical malpractice cases legal nurse consultants consult on involve significant economic damages, such as medical expenses and lost earning capacity. These high-dollar cases will continue to keeplegal nurse consultants busy.

4. Legal nurse consultants don't just consult on medical malpractice cases. We consult on general personal injury, products liability, toxic tort, criminal and a variety of other cases. Injury cases of all kinds will be with us as long as Americans breathe. Recovery for negligent injuries and the lost wages, medical bills and the like resulting from those injuries is the American way and is an ancient right that goes back to Mesopotamia in 2100 B.C.

5. In states that limit non-economic damages, attorneys are a bit more selective, concentrating on cases with significant physical and psychological damages (not just emotional distress or pain and suffering). That means both plaintiff and defense attorneys increasingly rely on legal nurse consultantsfor assurance that they're making the best business decision in each case they take on. I even see a day when it will be considered legal malpractice for an attorney not to have legal nurse consultants working behind the scenes on their cases.