Medical-Legal Partnership

Helping Patients and Families Get and Stay Healthy

Not every illness has a biological remedy.  A family forced to choose between food and heat in the winter months cannot be successfully treated with a prescription or a vaccination.  Similarly, an asthmatic child will never breathe symptom free – no matter how much medication is administered – if he or she returns from the doctor’s office to mold-infested housing, as thousands do. Across the U.S., health care providers who take care of low-income individuals and families are turning to new specialists to help keep them healthy and safe: attorneys who practice poverty law.

Medical-legal partnerships integrate attorneys as a vital component of the healthcare team. Through direct legal assistance, institutional and systemic policy change, MLPs address the non-medical determinants of health, including food and energy security, housing conditions, education and personal safety.