If you have a license defense benefit on your individual professional liability insurance policy you purchased and you have a complaint filed against your license with a State Nursing Board you should consider the following:
1. Contact your liability insurance carrier and inform the insurer of the pending complaint ASAP. You are required to provide your insurer with Notice of the pending complaint. Check your policy.
2. Ask your insurance carrier for a few names of nurse license defense attorneys in your state.
3. Research the nurse license defense attorneys online.
What are you looking for when selecting an attorney? See this brochure from the Center for American Nurses (www.centerforamericannurses.org) at Download LegalPage6_Select_An_Attorney
4. Contact the nurse license defense attorney(s) and ask questions.
5. Retain an attorney or law firm to represent you before the State Nursing Board.
I am being contacted by nurses who have a license defense benefit and for whatever reason have decided not to utilize the insurance until their case "has developed." The wait and see approach works for some. What is the wait and see approach? You proceed pro se with representing yourself until you "find out" or hear something in your case which causes you alarm or panic.
What is pro se? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_se_legal_representation_in_the_United_States. If you are not being represented by counsel before the State Nursing Board, then you are pro se.
If you are involved in a State Nursing Board case, consider retaining an attorney immediately after you are provided Notice by the State Nursing Board of the pending complaint against your license.
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