Medical-Legal Partnerships
According to the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership, there are currently 50,000,000 Americans who face health-harming legal needs which disproportionately affect low-income families, children, the elderly, and people of color.
Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLP) are valuable collaborations between the medical and legal communities. Under the MLP model, a case begins when a medical practitioner believes that a patient’s medical issues may be improved or resolved by a legal intervention. When the medical provider sends patients to CLA, our MLP staff investigates the cases and refers them to a CLA attorney or a volunteer lawyer. Our MLP staff also trains medical providers to spot issues affecting their patients’ health which can be solved by our legal advocacy.
Community Legal Aid operates MLPs:
- UMass Memorial Health Care, Worcester: Since the partnership began in 2015, the UMass MLP has assisted hundreds of pediatric and adult patients with legal needs related to special education, public benefits, housing and guardianship.
- Commonwealth Care Alliance, Springfield: This MLP launched in early 2022. The volume of referrals has surpassed CLA’s expectations, with the vast majority of referrals relating to housing issues.
- Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC), Northampton: Thanks to a grant from the United Way of the Franklin and Hampshire Region, since 2018 CLA has worked with the Northampton VAMC to address the unmet health-harming needs of veterans in the Pioneer Valley area, including housing, healthcare, veteran-specific benefits, and discharge status upgrades.
- In addition, CLA has coordinated with additional providers to launch new MLPs at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Worcester; Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield; and Community Healthlink, a branch of UMass Memorial.
Check out this great video of some of the clients who have been helped thanks to our MLP collaboration with UMass Memorial Health Care.
