Since the first medical-legal partnership (MLP) opened in 1993 at the Boston Medical Center, MLPs have increasingly become integrated into community health centers around the United States. And MLPs are in the business of growth: more than 300 MLPs are currently operating in the United States, and 59 percent of those are fewer than five years old. MLPs are collaborations between physicians and civil attorneys in which the attorneys are integrated into the health care team, and work with the patient to address civil legal needs that impact the social determinants of a patient\u27s health

Evarts, Susanna D.

Guevremont, Nathan

English

NELLCO Consortium Legal Scholarship Repository

Introduction to the Medical-Legal Partnership Symposium Issue

Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository

Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics 
Volume 17 Issue 2 Article 1 
2017 
Introduction to the Medical-Legal Partnership Symposium Issue 
Susanna D. Evarts 
Nathan Guevremont 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjhple 
 Part of the Health Law and Policy Commons, and the Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility 
Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Susanna D. Evarts & Nathan Guevremont, Introduction to the Medical-Legal Partnership Symposium 
Issue, 17 YALE J. HEALTH POL'Y L. & ETHICS (2017). 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjhple/vol17/iss2/1 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository. It has 
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School Legal Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact julian.aiken@yale.edu. 
Introduction to the Medical-Legal Partnership Symposium
Issue
Susanna D. Evarts & Nathan Guevremont, Co-Editors-in-Chief
Since the first medical-legal partnership (MLP) opened in 1993 at the Boston
Medical Center,' MLPs have increasingly become integrated into community
health centers around the United States. And MLPs are in the business of growth:
more than 300 MLPs are currently operating in the United States, and 59 percent
of those are fewer than five years old.2 MLPs are collaborations between
physicians and civil attorneys in which the attorneys are integrated into the health
care team, and work with the patient to address civil legal needs that impact the
social determinants of a patient's health. The MLP model emerged from the
recognition that many non-clinical circumstances had a direct impact on the
patient's health outcomes. For example, an individual suffering from asthma will
be thwarted in her quest to manage it if she lives in an apartment with a mold
infestation. An attorney working with the medical team can develop legal
interventions to help the patient move or get the mold treated, thereby transforming
the patient's living environment into one in which she can actually heal.
In March 2017, The Solomon Center for Health Law & Policy at Yale Law
School held a symposium on MLPs, featuring panels with leaders in the MLP field.
This issue contains articles written by some of the symposium's panelists on the
present and future of MLPs. The event provided an opportunity to reflect on the
systemic factors that impact the growth and development of MLPs nationwide, and
to address specific ways in which MLPs have been utilized successfully.
Yael Cannon, visiting Associate Professor at the Georgetown University Law
Center and Co-Director of the Georgetown University Medical-Legal Partnership,
writes about the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration to help medical
providers screen children for mental health needs. As Cannon explains, children
experience childhood trauma, are more likely to suffer from mental and physical
ailments as adults. One way in which physicians have been able identify and help
children living in abusive environments is by partnering with law-school clinics
through an MLP. Collaborating with attorneys and legal professionals not only
helps to provide assistance to patients at a clinic, but also provides an opportunity
1. Barry Zuckerman et al., Medical-Legal Partnerships: Transforming Health Care, 372 THE
LANCET 1615, 1616 (2008).
2. MARSHA REGENSTEIN ET AL., THE STATE OF THE MEDICAL-LEGAL PARTNERSHIP FIELD:
FINDINGS FROM THE 2016 NATIONAL CENTER FOR MEDICAL-LEGAL PARTNERSHIP SURVEYS 9 (2017).
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Evarts and Guevremont: Introduction to the Medical-Legal Partnership Symposium Issue
Published by Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository, 2017
YALE JOURNAL OF HEALTH POLICY, LAW, AND ETHICS
to identify and remedy systemic threats to the health of vulnerable populations.
The collaboration between physicians and attorneys leverages their ability to effect
change at the state levels.
Tamar Ezer, Associate Research Scholar in Law and Schell Visiting Human
Rights Scholar at Yale Law School, argues that MLPs should broaden their focus
to include an emphasis on community empowerment. The three core elements of
MLPs-direct legal assistance, health care provider training, and policy-change
advocacy-should be expanded to include an emphasis on community
development and engagement. By conducting rights-literacy trainings, utilizing the
power of community-based paralegals, and actively involving the community in
the program design, MLPs can become a more effective tool to advance the rights
of marginalized groups, and shift the framework from being needs-based to being
rights-based.
Jesselyn Friley, a recent graduate of Yale Law School and participant in the
school's MLP program, identifies a gap in MLP literature on the role that health
care providers have by appearing as witnesses in administrative proceedings. The
article provides an overview of the types of administrative proceedings in which
medical professionals can provide testimony, and explains potential problems that
health care providers may have when serving as expert witnesses in administrative
proceedings. The article provides suggestions for how MLPs can improve
collaboration with physicians.
Finally, Ellen Lawton, Lead Research Scientist and Co-Principal Investigator
at the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership at George Washington
University, and Joel Teitelbaum, Associate Professor of Health Policy and of Law
at George Washington University and Co-Principle Investigator at the National
Center for Medical-Legal Partnership, provide a historical account of MLPs'
origins, detailing collaborations, and occasional clashes, between attorneys and
physicians since the 1800s. With this historical perspective, the authors argue that
the law must play a central role in the modern fight to achieve health equity. They
emphasize the importance of legal strategies to address structural barriers to health,
arguing for increased emphasis on multidisciplinary training of medical
professionals and additional funding for civil legal aid. The MLP movement and
collaborations between attorneys and physicians provide a significant opportunity
to integrate health care quality and civil rights perspectives on health equity.
No interdisciplinary collaboration is static, and the MLP movement is no
exception. As it expands, matures, and solidifies, the tensions and opportunities
that the authors identify will only become more salient. We hope that this special
issue will contribute to ongoing dialogue between medical professionals, lawyers,
public health researchers, and policy-makers. While the future of American health
care reform is unclear, the spirit of cooperation and teamwork between attorneys
and physicians embodied in the MLP model will be essential no matter what
system emerges.
252
17:2 (2017)
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Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics, Vol. 17 [2017], Iss. 2, Art. 1
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