Cleveland Community Advocacy Program

What do you get when you put a doctor and a lawyer on the same medical case? When they team up in a medical-legal partnership, such as the Community Advocacy Program, a partnership between The MetroHealth System and The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, you get “more effective health outcomes for the patient-client,” said Legal Aid staff attorney Katie Feldman, who has been on the partnership team since last year and with Legal Aid for four years.

The Community Advocacy Program (CAP), run by Dr. E. Harry Walker at the MetroHealth Broadway Health Center, provides high quality health care for members of the reentry community via its Rentry Clinic. The Clinic is a gateway to MetroHealth's full scope of services and supports the patients' ongoing health care needs at a convenient location...

Doctors and lawyers are double-teaming the Cleveland schools' special-education office. MetroHealth Medical Center pediatricians who suspect that their low-income patients suffer from learning disabilities are referring families to Legal Aid lawyers with offices in the hospital and three neighborhood health centers. The lawyers then pressure the school district to provide what can be costly services...

Cleveland has long been considered an innovator in the areas of health and law. Building upon that tradition, Cleveland is also a leader in the new and rapidly expanding field of medical-legal partnership. In 2002, The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland and the MetroHealth System developed the Community Advocacy Program to better serve individuals and families living in poverty by removing legal barriers to health...

More and more, doctors are finding that a quick office visit and prescription refill will not cure their patients' every ill...

Teela Kelly has been meeting regularly the past several years with a pediatric neurology practitioner...

Cleveland will receive $1.27 million-worth of free legal help aimed at improving their lives. The money will pay Legal Aid attorneys -- armed with letters from MetroHealth doctors -- to navigate bureaucratic mazes that often stand between the neediest residents and their getting Social Security benefits, special education, welfare assistance, food stamps, Medicaid, child care help and decent housing...

Pediatricians now recognize that lawyers and healthcare professionals working together can often prevent illness and can give kids a better shot at recovery because they can address a full continuum of children's needs, including housing, food, education, healthcare and a safe, stable enviornment...

Nine-year-old Teela Kelly knows how cruel children can be. A life-long seizure disorder has delayed her ability to learn and speak, making it impossible for her to keep up with her classmates...

There's a lawyer in my clinic...and I wouldn't have it any other way! Actually, the lawyer has an office upstairs. Her name is Mallory Curran, she is a crucial player on our health-care team. I don't know how I would practice without her...