MLP News

At first glance, it seems an odd idea: Putting lawyers in safety-net clinics. The two don’t seem to go together. “There’s a whole cats-and-dogs thing when it comes to doctors and lawyers,” said Krista Postai, executive director at the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas in Pittsburg. But safety-net clinic patients, she said, tend to have a fair number of legal problems, which cause them stress, which leads to all kinds of health problems...

When Daniel Henderson was a first-year medical student at the University of Connecticut, he wanted to take a class on health care policy. But between his core requirements and an elective in community-based research methods, he didn't have room in his schedule. His only encounter with policy was a pair of dull lectures in his second year. "Most people did work for other classes or played games on their computer," Henderson recalls...

Liz Tobin Tyler, our Director of Public Service and Community Partnerships, is taking the lead in developing a distinctive collaboration between RWU Law and Brown Medical School. The “Medical-Legal Collaborative” involves faculty from both institutions, team-teaching students from both institutions, how to provide holistic help to poor individuals and families, on the view that many poor people’s health problems are exacerbated, if not caused, by living in poverty...

Amy Zimmerman has heard many say House Bill 628 sounds like it shouldn't be necessary. The bill ensures that parents of children with disabilities will have access to special education classrooms so they can be sure their kids' needs are being met...

The Peninsula Family Advocacy Program (FAP) provides on-site legal services to support low-income families and pregnant women in addressing unmet legal needs that often present barriers to their children’s health outcomes. Pediatricians at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital (LPCH) and Ravenswood Family Health Center (Ravenswood), an East Palo Alto community health center, and healthcare providers at San Mateo Medial Center (SMMC) and its prenatal clinics are provided background understanding of legal issues affecting patients, taught how to screen for family legal needs, and then refer them to the FAP.

Imagine a seven year old who has asthma. She goes to the pediatrician often and takes daily asthma medicine. Even so, she has trouble breathing every day. She misses a lot of school because of her illness. Sometimes, she can't sleep at night because she can't breathe. Her parents have to take her to the emergency room a lot. The family and pediatrician are at a loss. They're doing all the right things, but the little girl isn't getting better...

David M. Keller, M.D., FAAP, credits the [Healthy Tomorrows] grant with giving his program — Family Advocates of Central Massachusetts — stability during its early years. The program links pediatric practices affiliated with the University of Massachusetts medical school and attorneys to help patients and their families deal with legal matters. Issues include helping needy families obtain food stamps, domestic violence, special education concerns and making sure landlords keep apartments mold-free.

Down the hall and around the corner from the pediatric exam rooms in the Schusterman Clinic is a small office, not much bigger than a walk-in closet, where sits (gasp) a lawyer...

The Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF) recently awarded LegalHealth, a division of the New York Legal Assistance Group, the celebrated E. Lee Walker Imagination Award in acknowledgment of LegalHealth’s innovation in developing a national network of legal service providers for individuals with cancer and in providing direct legal services to cancer survivors...

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...

A University of Kansas School of Law clinic that provides legal services aimed at remedying health problems will serve as a successful example for an East Coast law school embarking on a new medical-legal partnership...

Jane, a CLC client, is a devoted mother trying to make the best life possible for her children. Her eleven year-old, hearing-impaired daughter Grace lives with cerebral palsy. Jane told Grace's pediatrician she was concerned her daughter's struggles in school were due to a lack of special support. The pediatrician referred Jane to Children's Law Center to help Grace get the equipment and resources she needed for her special health and education challenges....

Dana Weintraub, M.D., is a clinical assistant professor in general pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, staff pediatrician at Ravenswood Family Health Center and a lecturer on medical legal issues in children’s health at Stanford Law School...Weintraub is also co-founder and medical director of the Peninsula Family Advocacy Program, a collaborative effort with the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County to address causes of poor health in low-income children and provide free legal services to low-income families served by Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and the Ravenswood Family Health Center....

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...

The MedicoLegal Partnership for Children - RioGrande Valley is now providing services to children in Brownsville. TRLA's Kristin Small, JD is the staff attorney for the Brownsville project.

Anika Porter was taken aback when her 16-year-old son invited his girlfriend into the house earlier this month to meet the parents before heading out to a dance. Porter's son, Dannell Wise, was all smiles, sporting slacks, a tie and a vest. Porter just cried. The teenage ritual — "a little parade" in the living room — would seem commonplace were it not for what Porter considers a family miracle, connected to a partnership that pairs doctors and lawyers together for patient health...

In the heart of Chelsea’s Latino community, a health center stands out for its social approach to health services. At MGH Chelsea HealthCare Center, the Legal Initiatives for Kids (LINK) program combines health services with legal advocacy. The two-pronged approach is based on the idea that medicine can’t always do the job alone: When treating an asthmatic child who lives in a mold-infested house, for example, improving the landlord-tenant relationship can be just as important as prescribing a chest expectorant...

Dana Weintraub, MD, fellow ’04, saw that many low-income children need not just health care but also legal remedies, inspiring her to become a national advocate for a medical-legal model of patient care. She realized that parents frequently confide to pediatricians details about their children’s home and school lives, putting the physician in a unique position to spot legal problems in areas such as substandard housing and educational inequities...

Legal Aid opened the door of its office at Cincinnati Children's Hospital this pas summer launching Child HeLP, an innovative medical-legal partnership. Based on a successful national model, Child HeLP promotes children's health and well-bring by resolving legal problems that are barriers to improved health and family stability...