Medical-legal partnerships offer hands-on interdisciplinary opportunities for students.
Medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) are a collaborative healthcare delivery and legal services model that aims to improve patient care for America's most vulnerable populations of underserved families. It leverages nationwide health and law-related resources to comprehensively address relevant health disparities in social contexts of poverty; it advocates their resolution both through direct representation of patient-clients and coordinating research and policy activities to eliminate institutional barriers to this demographic's quality healthcare. Law schools are vital to these resources, with over 30 implementing their own MLPs and associated student legal clinics. These programs exemplify the meaningful student opportunities for consequential hands-on law practice and real client representation within this interdisciplinary model.
Syracuse University MLP
With MLP-affiliated initiatives, students contribute to the betterment of low-income patients' quality of life.
The Syracuse Medical-Legal Partnership (SMLP) is a partnership between the Syracuse University College of Law and SUNY Upstate Medical University. Syracuse Law's Family Law and Social Policy Institute conducts the legal services component of this multidisciplinary collaboration, including providing clinical and advocacy opportunities for law students. These participating students work directly with patients and in tandem with the SUNY medical team and participating healthcare providers. Their responsibilities consist of developing case conferences and performing onsite research, with the purpose of educating their medical partners with respect to identifying patients in SMLP's targeted demographic, and addressing other health-related legal implications.
Saint Louis University MLP: Child Health Advocacy Project
The Child Health Advocacy Project (CHAP) is an MLP between Saint Louis University (SLU) Law and three children's medical centers in the surrounding St. Louis area. SLU law student involvement in CHAP is organized through an in-house legal clinic, under the supervision of leading SLU professors in the fields of child advocacy and health law. Clinic students work onsite at the three medical centers, particularly with their low-income and disadvantaged children. Students' clinical work includes meeting with physicians, medical staff, and patients and their families, with the purpose of helping these constituents navigate the legal issues, such as public benefit administration, income and housing security, and family law rights, contributing to relevant medical conditions and affecting patient care.
Marquette University School of Law: MLP for Families
Marquette University's Legal and Medical Partnership for Families (LAMP) is an MLP joint venture between Marquette Law School and the Medical College of Wisconsin, along with several other respected partners in the professions of medical and legal aid. Marquette aligns with two Milwaukee-area pediatric clinics in direct association with LAMP and specifically for its law students' active involvement. LAMP students work collaboratively with specializing attorneys and healthcare providers in these clinical settings, where they perform critical research, advice, and advocacy functions to serve the oft-unmet health-related legal needs of the clinics' low-income community patient-families.
University of Michigan Law School MLP: Pediatric Advocacy Initiative
The Pediatric Advocacy Initiative (PAI) is an MLP founded by Michigan Law School in conjunction with leading community healthcare providers. Michigan Law students engage with this MLP by joining their school's Pediatric Advocacy Clinic (PAC), a principal student-oriented component of the overall PAI. PAC's mission is to confront the legal obstacles impacting the health conditions of Michigan's low-income children and their families. Participating students play a central role in its accomplishment in this invaluable opportunity for hands-on law practice. Their clinical work includes litigation assistance at all case stages, including direct client representation before courts and agencies, and multidisciplinary legal advocacy, such as participation in teacher meetings in school-related cases or landlord meetings in housing-based cases.
Tags: healthcare providers, Pediatric Advocacy, students work, Advocacy Initiative, Advocacy Project
