Medical-legal partnerships integrate lawyers in a healthcare setting to help patients navigate the complex legal system that often holds solutions to many social determinants of health--income supports for food insecure families, utility shut-off protection during cold winter months, and mold removal from the home of asthmatic children. Doctors and lawyers are now partnered at over 120 hospitals and health centers nationwide, serving children, the elderly, patients with cancer, pregnant women, the formerly incarcerated reentry community and other vulnerable populations. Medical-legal partnerships receive pro bono assistance from dozens of law firms and lawyers across the U.S. The Project will develop a national support center to further extend the reach of this exciting legal services delivery model both in terms of targeted patient populations and the variety of medical and legal partners involved. In particular, the need for significant engagement by the private bar in supporting the medical-legal partnership model is seen as critical to the growth of these projects across the country.

Bar Leader Toolkit: Medical Legal Partnerships (August 2009)

National Center for Medical Legal Partnership Library

Medical Legal Partnerships: A Model for Multidisciplinary Training of Doctors and Lawyers to Improve Health Outcomes
(Workshop at 2007 Equal Justice Conference)

Holistic Approaches to Advocacy: Creating a Medical-Legal Collaborative
(Workshop at 2004 Equal Justice Conference)

Hot Topics in Medical-Legal Partnership (Presentation by Paula Galowitz & Randye Redkin)
(Workshop at 2009 Equal Justice Conference)

Hot Topics in Medical-Legal Partnership (Presentation by Pamela Tames)
(Workshop at 2009 Equal Justice Conference)

ABA Economic Recovery

ABA Resolution in Support of Medical-Legal Partnerships (August 2007)

National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership

The Chicago Medical Legal Partnership for Children

American Public Media Broadcast on one Medical-Legal Partnership Benefiting Pediatric Patients (April 10, 2008)

In 1993 Dr. Barry Zuckerman, Chief of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center, was moved by the plight of his patients to form a project now called the Medical-Legal Partnership for Children. Dr. Zuckerman had come to understand that lawyers could do more than a pediatrician to address the social factors affecting child health and stability. He appreciated that lawyers could help to ensure access to food stamps, fight illegal evictions, and protect families from abuse for children suffering from malnutrition, homelessness and exposure to violence.

As the program’s success attracted national attention, programs like it began sprouting up all across the country. In Boston and elsewhere there have been significant innovations, creativity and strengthening of relationships between legal services and pro bono programs, hospitals, law firms, health centers, and foundations.

The ABA is now developing a national support center to further extend the reach of this exciting legal services delivery model. In particular, the need for significant engagement by the private bar in supporting the medical-legal partnership model is seen as critical to the growth of these projects across the country.

In developing this initiative special consideration will be given to considering medical-legal partnerships in as broad a sense as possible both in terms of targeted populations (e.g. children, people with AIDS, people with cancer and many others) and the medical partner (hospitals, community health centers, nursing homes and more). The proposed partners, using the national platform of the ABA, are well positioned to take medical-legal partnerships to the next level.

Here is a Video from Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County's Health Consumer Center (30 Mb, Flash Video)

or call (312) 988-5805

View Upcoming Webinars by the National Center for Medical Legal Partnership

The 5th Annual National Medical-Legal Partnership Summit: Patients to Policy
(March 25-26, 2010) Save the Date

Equal Justice Conference
(May 13-15, 2010 Phoenix, AZ)

National Pro Bono Celebration
(October 25-31, 2010)

Hospital adds "triage lawyer" to staff (November 2009)

Medical-Legal Partnerships (November 2009)

Kentucky Children's Hospital Doctors Receive Grants (October 2009)

Zuckerman Honored by New England Healthcare Institute (October 2009)

Saturday clinic to help families ‘Keep-the-Power-On (October 2009)

Under One Roof: TRLA’s MLAF Program (Fall 2009)

UH Manoa School of Law professor Hazel Beh leads Health Law Policy Center (9/21/2009)

Law firm gives helping hand (9/15/2009)

The lawyer is in, thanks to the doctor: Medical-legal partnerships address patients' health and social needs (9/14/2009)

Recent Alumna To Serve as Inaugural Fellow to University of Kansas Law's Medical-Legal Clinic (August 27, 2009)

Mintz Levin in Am Law Pro Bono 100 for MLP Work (July 1, 2009)

Doctors, lawyers team up to help special needs children (April 27, 2009)

KU law school’s medical-legal partnership tapped as example to follow (April 23, 2009)

The Children's Advocate (Spring 2009) [Penn State's Children's Advocacy Clinic Newsletter]

Doctors, lawyers partner in hospitals for patient health (2/17/2009)

ABA Health Law Swine Flu page

Swine Influenza: The Employer’s Guide to the Legal and Workplace Implications of a Swine Influenza Outbreak (Seyfarth Shaw LLP 04/29/2009)

Pandemic Flu

Center for Disease Control

World Health Organization

National Pro Bono Volunteer Opportunity Guide