Thinking Differently about Medical-Legal Partnerships – Lessons and Hope from a Unique Collaboration between a Law School, College of Nursing and Community Based Health Center

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Session Type: Lightning Sessions

Session Capacity: N/A

Location: N/A

Room: Franciscan D

Floor: Ballroom Level

The literature is clear; health harming legal needs (HHLNs) are legal burdens that negatively affect a person’s overall health. However, we rarely train law students to think beyond the sole issue before us. This is often the same for healthcare providers. Our hope for the future is that our providers – lawyers and healthcare providers – will change how legal services and healthcare are delivered. How do we support this hope? We provide opportunities for inter-professional collaboration during graduate school. Come learn about the launching of a new medical-legal partnership (MLP). We created a MLP to bridge the gap between healthcare and the law to show a new way of care driven by the needs of the community. What is unique about this collaboration? It is between a law school and college of nursing and focuses on a community based health center. In this MLP, law students and nursing students from the same university system lead the initiative. What else is special? We turned to the community to tell us what they need. Come hear about how we created this initiative. Working within the MLP in a school of law and college of nursing, will teach our students how to provide legal advice and healthcare differently by focusing on the needs of the community in which they serve and provide expanded access to services to community members. In our model, lawyers are a part of the health team, healthcare providers are empowered to take a more active role in addressing their patients’ HHLNs and community members are given a voice to define their needs and what is impacting their life. We will share what we are doing, how we have changed our process and lessons that we have learned. We hope you will be inspired to create your own MLP.