This panel will describe Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) and how these multi-disciplinary ventures are uniquely suited to the law school of the future. Trends in legal education emphasize practical skills, working across professional disciplines and outcome-driven pedagogical choices. The role of the law school clinic has also long emphasized response to community needs and social justice goals. MLPs provide rich curricular opportunities in all of these areas.
Presenters will identify and engage the audience in discussion about the unique opportunities and challenges inherent in this cross-disciplinary collaboration, particularly with respect to empirical outcome measurement and millennial student evaluation. The millennial generation demonstrates team-oriented attributes making the MLP clinical context an ideal setting for today’s millennial medical and law student learners. In addition to student learning and legal case resolutions, MLPs seek to measure a variety of other outcomes, including: the impact of legal interventions on patient health and well-being, professional attitudinal and behavioral changes, professional identity formation, medical and legal institutional improvement through policy advocacy and financial outcomes. These partnerships also emphasize and seek to evaluate their community impact and the efficacy of their educational mission through substantive and skills training for the professional service providers as well as patients.
Members of the panel will share their interdisciplinary experiences and their processes of tracking data, measuring, assessing and analyzing outcomes in multiple areas and challenges they have faced. The presenters will share concrete tools they have used to measure outcomes and track data including syllabi, learning goals grading rubrics, student narrative self-evaluation forms, millennial student attitude surveys, sample IRB data collection forms, client legal needs assessments and quality of life (QOL) surveys. The panel will facilitate a brainstorming session with the audience to identify “best practices” for a tracking system for all the potential benefits of an MLP.