News

The Florida State University Center for Innovative Collaboration in Medicine & Law is sponsoring a new eJournal, Medical-Legal Studies. This eJournal identifies and analyzes the legal, social, economic, and psychological aspects of contemporary issues on which there may be tension between physicians and attorneys as well as issues presenting opportunities for positive collaboration between the medical and legal professions.

The National Center encourages sites to continue building on the wonderful momentum from Capitol Hill Day by reaching out to leaders in your community. Inviting legislators and staff to your hospital or clinic can be a rewarding experience and a great way to give policymakers the opportunity to get to know your MLP. A site visit can create a lasting impression of the positive impact your work has on the health and well being of individuals and families in your community.

Planning on attending the Equal Justice Conference in Phoenix, AZ next month? There will be three MLP sessions and a site visit to the Mountain Park Health Center MLP. Join us!

We're back from the MLP Summit where over 300 healthcare providers, lawyers and partners participated in our largest conference yet!

Please join us and your MLP colleagues for a welcome reception on Wednesday, March 24th from 6pm – 7:30pm in the Atrium of the Sheraton Crystal City Hotel. It’s an open house, so please stop by whenever you arrive at the hotel (or on your way back from Capitol Hill Day).

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is seeking proposals for Public Health Law Research grants. Grants will be awarded in amounts up to $450,000 for studies that build the evidence for and strengthen the use of regulatory, legal and policy solutions to improve public health as well as those focused on identifying and ameliorating laws and legal practices that unintentionally harm health.

There are sixteen legal fellows working at medical-legal partnerships across the United States. These fellows are sponsored by the Skadden Fellowship Foundation, Equal Justice Works, Equal Justice AmeriCorps and local fellowship programs.

Office Hours available! NCMLP staff and MLP Network members are available for 30 min. consultations on topics including basic MLP strategies, research and evaluation, and confidentiality and ethics. To book an appointment, please contact Leanne.Ta@bmc.org.

The American Bar Association highlighted its support for MLP in the Healthcare Reform bill in a recent letter to Congressional leadership detailing ABA priorities in health care reform. Thanks to our partners at the ABA!

Attention LSC-funded legal aid partners! We are committed to facilitating your participation in Capitol Hill Day in conformance with all LSC regulations. Our Hill Day partners, including the Podesta Group and McDermott Will & Emery, will work with individual sites to coordinate strategies to ensure appropriate participation. We strongly encourage our LSC-funded partners to register now, and stay tuned for resources and guidance. In the meantime, click here to see the Center for Law and Social Policy’s (CLASP) excellent analysis of LSC policy advocacy restrictions.

On November 17th, Ellen Lawton participated in Root Cause’s Public Innovator’s forum on Capitol Hill to discuss medical-legal partnership in the context of social innovation and government investment.

The National Center is delighted to welcome Leanne Ta, Program Assistant to our team! Leanne will be working closely with the MLP Network, Working Groups and Medical Advisory Board.

Join us on March 24th as medical-legal partnership teams meet with members of Congress and staff to educate them about MLP and its impact on vulnerable populations in communities across the United States...

Join us for a webinar as part of the National Pro Bono Celebration on Tuesday, October 27th 2pm-3pm EDT. Ropes & Gray LLP in Boston adopted the Dorchester House Multi-Service Center, staffing the legal clinic at Dot House (with guidance from MLP | Boston) and representing all cases that come to intake at the health center. The team from Ropes & Gray will discuss how to build internal infrastructure to support adoption – such as establishing designated practice area teams and leaders, an intranet page for the project and drafting substantive guides for pro bono volunteers. The presentation will be followed by time for questions. This webinar is great for pro bono and legal aid attorneys alike.

Attention MLPs in the Northeast! Join MLP | Boston and key stakeholders for a day of learning and networking at the first ever Massachusetts statewide MLP conference on November 2, 2009, in Worcester, MA. Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern will deliver the keynote address and panels will offer perspectives on best practices in training, service delivery, systemic advocacy, research and evaluation and fundraising. MLP Sites and people interested in developing an MLP from Massachusetts and New England are welcome to attend. Attendance is free. Contact Jeff Wojciechowski at Jeffrey.Wojciechowski@bmc.org for more info or click here to register.

The Kresge Foundation is generously supporting a multi-tiered planning process for the National Center and the MLP Network. We have engaged Root Cause, to coordinate and facilitate this effort, and as part of that process, we convened a small meeting in Boston on September 22nd to examine current research and evaluation activities and consider priorities for the next phase of the MLP movement. We look forward to sharing meeting results with you over the next several months, and will keep you updated on the planning process as it unfolds. Both NCMLP and Root Cause are eager to incorporate the many voices that the MLP Network reflects into this exciting new phase of medical-legal partnership. Stay tuned!

Submit your poster session abstracts here! There will be an accredited MLP Poster Session during breakfast on Friday, March 26h. You’re encouraged to submit abstracts in any of the core areas of mlp: capacity and sustainability, direct service, evaluation, systemic advocacy and training and education. Abstracts are due January 22, 2010 and presenters will be notified by January 29th.

New book chapter examines medical-legal partnership as a tool for promoting the goals and practice of preventive law and preventive medicine.

The 2010 Medical-Legal Partnership Summit session application is now online. If you are interested in presenting at the summit, click below for guidelines and application. The submission deadline is September 11, 2009.

With generous financial support from the Sunflower Foundation of Topeka, Kansas, the University of Kansas has established the first law-school based Medical-Legal Partnership Post-Graduate Fellowship. The grant supports three, one-year fellowships for recent law graduates to work with MLP sites in Kansas and Missouri, by representing clients, supervising law students, engaging in research and program evaluation, and developing new partnerships. The Fellowship is tremendous opportunity for the Law School to foster new lawyers’ interests in medical-legal partnerships, advocacy, health law, public health law, public service, and social justice. Fellows will work with the Family Health Care Legal Services Clinic at existing clinics as well as new and developing sites...