Like many entrepreneurs, I have had more than one business. The mistakes I have made in other businesses carry lessons for my legal nurse consulting business – and for yours. Learn from my errors; save yourself a lot of money, time and grief.
1. Don’t try to create a new market for what you know people need.
Driven by the conviction that the public needed to learn how to protect themselves from medical errors, I wanted to teach people how to be good advocates from themselves and their loved ones. Those of us in the legal nurse consulting profession who work on medical malpractice cases see many examples of injuries to patients. We know how important it is for people to speak up.
I started a company called Avoid Medical Errors after I received appropriate training. I spent time setting up membership sites, interviewing experts, developing a magazine and creating bonuses. For two years I poured 20 hours a month into tweeting, blogging, interviewing, writing, editing, and promoting this business.
It was a failure. I tried to give people what they needed and not what they wanted.
I found out that the only people who really cared about medical errors were people who had been the victim of one. And they weren’t spending money on the topic.
What does this mean for your legal nurse consulting business?
Don’t offer novel services to your attorney clients. Give them what they want, what they need, and not some new service you think they need.
Attorneys like medical record organization, timelines, chronologies, deposition summaries, screening medical malpractice cases, and having experts found for them. Stick to the basics. It is far easier to offer existing services to clients than to try to break new ground. Know what people will pay for.
2. Carefully select a partner – if at all.
Several years ago I created a partnership with a person for a specific project. I did not know her well before we committed to work together. Early in our relationship something happened that made me regret my connection to her. By then, it was too late. We had to carry out what we had set in motion.
The next 3 months were among the most stressful of my life and left long lasting scars. I lost all of the money I made on the project, and then some, in fees to an attorney as I extricated myself from her. I have never had a partner since.
What does this mean for your legal nurse consulting business?
If you decide to get a partner be sure you understand and know that person well and share the same values and work ethic. There is an enormous opportunity for successful collaboration between partners by balancing each other’s strengths and weaknesses, for combating discouragement and loneliness, and for growing a business. But a bad partnership is like a bad marriage.
One person described a partner as like a spouse without the sex. The break up of a partnership is like a divorce.
3. Sometimes you gotta say no.
We are conditioned as nurses to help people. We bend over backwards to be accommodating. We want to be useful, essential, and responsive. I have never regretted extending a courtesy and being helpful to a good client.
I have regretted waiving a retainer requirement or being flexible on fees with a new, unknown client. I have regretted being squeezed or taken advantage of. It rarely happens. 
What does this mean for your legal nurse consulting business?
Don’t get hooked by the needy and shifty client. Learn to spot the trouble signs in a new client who has unreasonable demands and is not willing to pay. Here are requests you should say no to.
- “I need to name an expert within 3 days, and I don’t need her to review the records – I just need a name.”
- “I need an expert and if he agrees with my theory of the case I will pay you for the search.”
- “I didn’t settle the case for as much as I hoped so I want you to reduce your fee.”
- “I can’t afford to pay you to work on my dozens of cases. I will pay you when they settle.”
What lessons have you learned from your life experiences that would help other legal nurse consultants? Share your story.
Pat Iyer MSN RN LNCC earned her masters from the School of Hard Knocks (and University of Pennsylvania).