Legal Aide
By Matrissa Leggett • Photo By Jordan Barclay

Michele McClure was a college coed working as a unit secretary and nurse’s aide at the former Welborn Hospital when the elementary education major was “wowed,” she recalls, by the nurses on the cardiac floor who sprang into action when codes sounded. The excitement was contagious: She switched majors and became a registered nurse. This change would not be her last. After pursuing various specialties, she’s now a
legal nurse consultant with Gerling Law Injury Attorneys. McClure spent the first two years of her medical career as a licensed practical nurse at a nursing home while earning her registered nurse degree. For the next 12 years, she worked as a cardiology nurse at The Heart Group. She enjoyed her career, but an advertisement in a professional journal for a legal nurse consultant — a small but growing profession of medical nurses who assist attorneys, paralegals, insurance representatives, and their clients through the medical aspects of personal injury cases or insurance claims — intrigued McClure as a new and challenging way to use her skills.

“The specialty has been around for 20 years, but I had never been exposed to it during clinical rounds when I was in school,” says McClure. She wasn’t alone, as many — at least in this area — also are unfamiliar with the specialty. McClure is the only legal nurse consultant certified within 120 miles of Evansville, and she’s one of just 12 legal nurse consultants certified in Indiana. The profession has caught on in many Southern states, mainly in the Carolinas and Florida, and has grown significantly during the past 20 years, according to Suzanne Q. Langroth, president of the American Association of Legal Nurse Consultants. In 1989, the AALNC included 49 members; today, more than 3,500 members make up the organization. “The demand for legal nurse consultants has grown as attorneys have come to recognize the unique value that they bring to the litigation team,” says Langroth.

Gayle Gerling Pettinga, owner and managing attorney of Gerling Law Injury Attorneys, agrees. Gerling Pettinga — who bought the firm from her father, Gary Gerling, who founded the Downtown law firm more than 40 years ago — believes hiring McClure three years ago was a means to push the firm forward. “As injury attorneys, a large part of our work involves medical records and bills, including medical billing codes and making sure that bills are coded correctly,” Gerling Pettinga says. “Although our attorneys have developed medical knowledge, incorrect coding is something that the attorneys and paralegals may not pick up on.”

McClure is a resource for Gerling Pettinga’s Evansville law office: six attorneys and two case managers. She interprets, simplifies, and organizes medical information related to personal injury cases. “I think it reassures the client that a medical professional is on staff to look through everything,” McClure says. “And I love working with the attorneys to put all the medical puzzle pieces together.”

The puzzles are a variety of cases, including motor vehicle accidents, falls, dog bites, and workplace accidents — any situation where someone is injured through someone else’s negligence and not through any fault of their own. For each case, McClure transforms stacks upon stacks of medical information from the hospital into a medical chart and medical review so that an attorney “can have the nuts and bolts of 500 pages of information,” she says. “I make sure that we have gone through every record to find even the simplest thing.” McClure follows through on everything from ambulance records to surgeon referrals to physical therapy, and she’s an expert on multiple medical specialties, including orthopaedics, pain management, neurology, plastic surgery, and more for good reason: “to know that the client has reached the medical maximum for improvement or learn if there are long-term issues they will deal with for a lifetime,” says McClure.

Attorneys use McClure’s research to develop questions and prepare experts for depositions. “I was very impressed at the amount of medical knowledge they had developed over the years,” McClure says, “but it’s nice to know that I can guide them through medical terminology and pronunciations when they want me to.” Her efforts create a deeper level of understanding, a second layer of questioning that identifies strengths and weaknesses in cases, says Gerling Pettinga.

“At first I wondered what I had gotten myself into,” says McClure, who says she still feels like a practicing nurse, “just not in a hands-on clinical setting. This is a whole different way of using my experience.” McClure’s sentiment is reflected across the nation. “More nurses have entered this specialized field as they have become aware of the possibilities to impact patient outcomes and patient safety,” Langroth says. After all, a certified legal nurse consultant — who is required to have at least five years as a practicing registered nurse, have at least 2,000 hours practicing as a legal nurse consultant, and pass a four-hour certification exam — is just another avenue for nurses to use their experiences.

The work is worth it, says McClure, who also volunteers throughout the community. In February, she offered advice on cardiac health at the Vanderburgh Homeless Connect, an event hosted by the Commission on Homelessness that provided services — tax return preparation, health screenings, and haircuts — for the homeless, and she gave similar guidance at The Women’s Hospital’s Day of Dance, a free event with heart-healthy information. Her community-minded presence has been an opportunity to teach people more about her job, a profession she believes will continue to grow. “I probably get a couple of phone calls each month inquiring about the specialty and have had a few nurses shadow me in my position,” she says. “I just want to bring attention to this specialty.”