No Cases Yet? How New LNCs Prove Their Worth

A new legal nurse consultant sits down to prove her worth when she writes her LinkedIn profile. She has 17 years in labor and delivery. She has precepted dozens of new nurses, served on the multidisciplinary perinatal safety committee, and been the charge nurse on nights when everything went wrong at once.

She describes herself on her About Me section as: “New legal nurse consultant seeking to help attorneys with medical record reviews.”

Seventeen years just disappeared in one sentence.

New LNCs do this all the time. They focus on what they don’t have (a list of cases, attorney testimonials, years in business) and overlook what an attorney is paying for: a nurse who knows what should have happened at the bedside.

I recently read an article by Elham, who writes the Substack Digital Skills to Income, called How to Prove You Actually Know What You’re Talking About. She wrote it for solo business owners and writers, and she built it around E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust. The term comes from the framework Google’s quality raters use to judge content.

Her point is that E-E-A-T isn’t a trick for ranking higher. It comes down to one question: can someone see why they should believe you and can you prove your worth, even if you have never reviewed a case?

Every attorney asks that question about an LNC. Here is how to answer it when your case list is short or empty.

Let’s look at each of these four parts of the framework.

Experience: Show What You’ve Done at the Bedside

When an attorney considers your experience as it relates to a case, the questions they may ask are:

• Has this LNC any experience in this issue?
• How much?
• Is it within the timeframe of the incident?

How do you provide evidence that you have the experience? Use real examples (without identifying details), your resume, stories, and explanations.

Compare these two descriptions related to a failure to rescue case.

Weak: “Experienced med-surg nurse with strong assessment skills.”

Stronger: “I spent 12 years on a 32-bed medical-surgical unit caring for post-operative patients. I’ve called rapid responses on patients, and I know what the record should show in the hours before a patient deteriorates.”

An attorney holding a failure to rescue case reads the second version and knows whom to call. Nothing in it claims legal experience. It describes nursing experience in enough detail that the reader can see the nurse has the experience.

Most nurses have far more of this material than they realize. They have never written it down. Start a file and list:

• The units you worked on, the patient populations, and the bed counts
• Equipment and procedures you handled routinely
• Examples of the kinds of clinical emergencies you’ve encountered
• Charge, preceptor, and resource nurse roles
• Committees you served on and policies you helped write or revise
• Educational sessions you taught
• The electronic health record systems you charted in
• Clinical certifications, with dates

Two cautions.

First, describe patterns and not patients. Nothing in your marketing should let anyone identify a person you cared for.

Second, if you took part in peer review or root cause analysis, you can say you participated. Don’t describe what those reviews found.

Expertise: Show Your Reasoning

When you have expertise in an area, you understand it well enough to explain it – verbally and in writing.

When an attorney considers your expertise as it relates to a case, the questions they may ask are:

• Has the LNC sufficient experience in this area to build up expertise?
• How do I know they have expertise?

How do you provide evidence that you have expertise?

Cite relevant qualifications and clinical certifications, display clear reasoning and cite standards of care. Use accurate terminology and demonstrate the ability to explain complex issues in simple terms.  You do this all the time when you are teaching patients.

Weak: “I review medical records for deviations from the standard of care.”

Stronger: “When I review a fall case, I start with the fall risk assessment on admission and whether anyone repeated it after a change in condition or a new medication. Then I compare the care plan against what the flow sheets show was done: the bed alarm, the toileting schedule, the rounding. Then I read the post-fall assessment and who was notified, and when.”

You can write that paragraph or explain that process to prove your worth without ever having reviewed a case for an attorney, because it comes from your clinical knowledge. You’ve done fall risk assessments hundreds of times. You know where the gaps show up.

Turn that reasoning into content an attorney can find:

• A LinkedIn post on what a sepsis screen should look like in an emergency department chart
• A short article on five things you look for in a pressure injury record
• A one-page explanation of what charting by exception can hide

Each one lets an attorney watch you think before spending a dollar.

Authoritativeness: You Can’t Declare It Yourself

When you are considered an authority in your field, other credible people recognize your work. You can put “leading legal nurse expert” on your website. That doesn’t make it true. Authority comes from other people and outside organizations vouching for you.

As a new LNC, you may already may have some of it from your clinical career:

• Specialty certifications such as CCRN, CEN, RNC-OB, or CWOCN. A certifying body tested you and put its name behind yours.
• Membership in your clinical specialty association
• Presentations to your unit, your hospital, or a conference
• Published articles or poster presentations
• Clinical ladder advancement, awards, and teaching appointments
• LinkedIn recommendations from physicians, nurse managers, and educators who can speak to your clinical judgment

Your authority also shows up as people mentioning you, appearances on podcasts, links to your website, and referrals from other LNCs.

With your clinical experience and expertise nailed down, build your authority as your legal nurse consulting practice grows.

Join AALNC and your local or a virtual chapter. Offer to speak to a bar association section about your specialty. Write for an attorney publication. Ask to be a guest on a podcast attorneys listen to. One recommendation from an attorney other attorneys respect will do more for you than a wall of badges.

Trust: Make Yourself Easy to Verify

Attorneys check. If you testify as an expert witness, opposing counsel will check harder. Everything you say about yourself should be something a stranger can confirm. Know that opposing counsel will make an effort to verify you, your experience, credentials, and opinions.

Also be aware that opposing counsel will search your social media posts and profiles to find damaging information.

Look at your LinkedIn profile and website as an attorney would. Can that attorney find:

• Your full name and credentials, listed correctly
• The state where you hold your license
• Whether you still work clinically, and where that matters for the cases you want
• Employment dates that match your CV
• A professional email address and a phone number
• A plain statement of what you do and for whom

Your bio carries a lot of this weight.

Weak: “Passionate nurse dedicated to helping attorneys seek justice.”

Stronger: “Jane Sessen, BSN, RN, CEN, is a legal nurse consultant with 14 years of emergency nursing experience in a Level I trauma center. She reviews medical records for plaintiff and defense attorneys handling emergency department cases, including triage delays and missed strokes. She continues to work in the ED.”

Now the attorney knows who Jane is, what she has done, which cases fit her, and that her knowledge is current.

Be Honest About Being New

Elham closes with a framework I like: make your claim, give your evidence, and state the limit of what that evidence proves. For a new LNC, the limit is that you are new.

Don’t hide it, and don’t apologize for it. When an attorney asks how many cases you’ve reviewed, answer the question:

“I’m new to legal nurse consulting. I’ve spent 14 years doing the kind of nursing at the center of your case. Here is how I’d approach these records.”

That answer is stronger than a vague one, because the attorney can rely on every word of it. And it is far better than, “I’ve never done a case but I know I can do a great job for you.”

The other limit is your clinical background. A labor and delivery nurse marketing herself for orthopedic cases has no evidence behind the claim. Stay with what you can back up and refer out or subcontract the rest.

And never pad. No inflated case counts. No “working with attorneys nationwide” when you’ve worked with one. No testimonials you wrote yourself. As Elham puts it, “Do not manufacture the evidence you wish you had.” In our field, the person who finds the gap may be a defense attorney with your CV in one hand and your deposition transcript in the other.

What to Do This Week

• Rewrite your bio. Take out “passionate” and “dedicated.” Put in your specialty, your years, your setting, your certifications, and the case types you want.
• Start your proof file with ten specifics from your clinical career.
• Write one LinkedIn post that walks through how you would look at a single type of record in your specialty.
• Ask two people who have watched you work for a LinkedIn recommendation.

Sign up for our one day LNC Mastery Intensive: LinkedIn for LNCs to update and polish your LinkedIn profile and most effectively use this platform to attract attorney clients. Get the details. 

Your clinical role isn’t a placeholder until the cases arrive. It is the reason an attorney hires you for the first one. Make it visible.