Legal Nurse Consultant – Career and Education Profile

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Legal nurse consultants provide expert opinion in courts or help lawyers strengthen their cases and understand the medical information involving their clients.

Job Responsibilities

As a legal nurse consultant, you’ll work away from clinical practice and instead work more as a liaison or in communications to help laypeople understand medical information. You could do tasks such as working with a lawyer to understand charts, researching medical cases, serving as a expert witness in court, preparing findings reports, dealing with informatics issues, and more. In addition, you could work with insurance companies, medical manufacturers, and other companies related to the medical world, but not involved with patient care. Legal nurse consultants often work independently, contracting with clients, so your tasks will change from day to day, depending on the cases you’re handling and your clients at any give time.

Salary and Career Options

Unlike most types of nurses, legal nurse consultants often work on an hourly basis. You can earn $100 to $200 per hour, on average, working in this field, but it depends on your location, the client, and your level of expertise. Almost all legal nurse consultants work for several years in the nursing field and have at least a master’s degree before working as a consultant in the field. The highest-paid consultants are typically specialists in their fields or have additional training in law or forensic nursing.

Educational Requirements

To become a legal nurse consultant, you need at least an associate’s degree, though most RNs go on to get their bachelor’s degree or master’s degree in this field before becoming certified. Your classes will cover a number of topics outside general nursing, such as malpractice, liability, forensics, elderly care law, and general health law. You can then seek certification through the American Legal Nurse Consultant Certification Board (ALNCCB).

LPN to RN College Programs

While several schools have online nursing degrees available, few offer LPN to RN programs. What's the good news? We have listed some accredited schools below that do offer the program in addition to schools with other bridge programs available. Find out more information and contact each school by using any of the links below.

Indiana State University—Indiana State University offers a robust online program designed for LPNs wanting to become registered nurses and earn their BSN degree. Since ISU's credits transfer to over 80 campus majors, this is an ideal program for people wanting to open opportunities for their career down the road.

The College Network—The College Network is a partnership with several universities and organizations like the National League for Nursing that focuses on online education and programs, with several courses for nurses or those interested in a nursing career. Specifically, TCN helps students prepare for their PN and RN licensures and move on to earn graduate degrees.

Other Nursing Degrees

Walden University—Walden University is typically a graduate school with several masters and doctoral programs available, but they do have BSN and RN to MSN bridge programs available. Walden is based out of Minneapolis and offers several options in transferring your previously earned credits to and from (or even within) the school.

Kaplan University—Kaplan University is one of the nation's largest and leading online educators and offers several bridge programs for registered nurses to earn their BSN or MSN degree. If you have previously earned credits, Kaplan makes it easy for you to transfer to any one of their undergraduate or graduate programs.

Herzing University—While Herzing University does not offer an undergraduate nursing degree, it is a great choice for working nurses wanting to pursue leadership positions in Nurse Education or Management. With over 10 campuses and 45 online programs available, Herzing has a massive network that makes it easy to transfer to or from the school.

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