Professional Impact

One of the goals of medical-legal partnership is to simultaneously transform healthcare for vulnerable populations and the service delivery model of legal aid to improve the health and well-being of families and individuals.  By training physicians to screen for social determinants of health and lawyers to intervene in a preventive posture, medical-legal partnership aims to address legal problems before they become crises.

 

Impact on Healthcare Professions

Medical Schools

There are 24 medical schools currently partnering with medical-legal partnerships in the United States. Four medical schools offer courses in medical-legal partnership and five have MLP electives.

Residency Programs

There are currently 55 residency programs in the United States that are partnered with medical-legal partnerships. These residency programs represent a range of clinical specialties.

Medical-legal partnerships have developed curriculum to meet the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s six competencies.

Professional Resolutions

In June 2010, the American Medical Association passed a resolution in support of MLP. Click here to read more.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Arizona Academy of Family Physicians have also passed resolutions in support of medical-legal partnership.

• American Academy of Pediatrics – adopted December 2007
• Arizona Academy of Family Physicians – adopted April 2008

A similar resolution is currently pending before the American Academy of Family Physicians.

RWJF Health Policy Fellows

Last year, two medical-legal partnership medical directors were selected as Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellows.  Dr. David Keller of the Family Advocates of Central Massachusetts and Dr. Shale Wong of the Colorado Medical-Legal Partnership were selected to complete a 12-month fellowship in Washington, D.C. to provide health policy leadership on Capitol Hill to improve health and health care.

AHRQ Profile

In July 2009, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) published an Innovation Profile on NCMLP and MLP | Boston: Provider-Lawyer Partnerships Increase Access to Health-Related Legal Services and Improve Well-Being for Low-Income Children and Families is available on the AHRQ website.

Legal Professions

Law Schools

There are 37 law schools currently partnering with medical-legal partnerships in the United States.   Five law schools offer courses in medical-legal partnership, 11 have MLP clinics and 17 offer MLP externships.

MLP Legal Fellows

There are currently 18 MLP legal fellows working at medical-legal partnerships across the U.S. with additional former fellows working at the MLPs they founded.

Funded by independent organizations, MLP legal fellows serve for one to two years in various capacities at MLPs.  Fellows are critical to the daily operation and success of many MLPs across the country, some of which were established by fellows during their fellowship periods.

Many MLP legal fellows receive generous support from a range of philanthropic organizations, including the Equal Justice Works Fellowship Program, the Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Program and the Skadden Fellowship Foundation.

Legal Aid Offices

As of March 2010, 94 legal aid agencies across the United States are involved in medical-legal partnership.  Over half of medical-legal partnerships are partnered with an LSC-funded legal aid agency.  Forty-three MLPs partner with 39 LSC-funded programs in 42 cities and 27 states.

During her swearing-in ceremony to the Legal Services Corporation Board on April 7, 2010, Martha Minow, Dean of the Faculty of Law at Harvard University School of Law, mentioned the work being done by MLPs:

These [MLPs] address the causes of health challenges like malnutrition, homelessness, life-threatening asthma, or the choice between paying for food or medicine. Medical-legal partnership programs help people navigate complex systems that alter the social determinants of health. They secure income supports, get rid of mold in the rental apartment, and involve health care providers in the policy process to tackle patterns that affect many individuals.

American Bar Association MLP Pro Bono Support Project

In October 2008, the American Bar Association made a significant commitment to the MLP model by developing a national support center to further extend the reach of medical-legal partnership by engaging the private bar in support of these partnerships. The center is supported by the ABA Enterprise Fund and is a joint project of the ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service, the Health Law Section, the AIDS Coordinating Committee and the ABA Center on Children and the Law.

For more information, please contact:
Kelly Scott-Flood, Esq.
Staff Attorney, Center for Pro Bono
scottk@staff.abanet.org
http://www.abanet.org/legalservices/probono/medlegal/home.shtml

Pro Bono Involvement

Nearly fifty private law firms and corporate counsel partner with MLPs, taking specific cases and participating in clinics or working with health institutions to establish new partnerships.  On a national level, law firms have donated countless hours to assist with confidentiality and ethics issues, as well as to help guide MLP policy efforts.

Professional Resolutions

In August 2007, the American Bar Association adopted a resolution in support of medical-legal partnership:

RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association encourages lawyers, law firms, legal services agencies, law schools and bar associations to develop medical-legal partnerships with hospitals, community-based health care providers, and social service organizations to help identify and resolve diverse legal issues that affect patients’ health and well-being.

Click here to read the Health Law Section's Accompanying Report to the House of Delegates

MLP as a Career Path

In the sixteen years since MLP's inception, an MLP career path has emerged for attorneys.  Students who worked in an MLP clinic during law school have gone on to start new medical-legal partnerships as fellows and have then become staff attorneys at MLPs. There are three attorneys in the MLP Network who have worked at three different partnerships during their career.

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