Legal Nurse Consulting – Education and Requirements

There is no single professional body that provides certification for LNCs, nor are there educational requirements set in stone, other than all LNCs must be Registered Nurses.  The first baccalaureate program in the country was established by the University of Cincinnati in 1999.  Today, there are dozens of technical schools and programs that will provide training in the field for people who already have RN status.  Many of those schools provide their own “certification” because there is no national standard. 

The closest thing to an objective and meaningful certification procedure is probably that established by the AALNC.  They have established the American Legal Nurse Certification Board which administers a four hour test for certification as a LNCC.  The qualifications for the test are:

• Have a current, unrestricted RN license in one of the states.
• Have evidence of 2000 hours of legal nurse consulting practice within the past three years.