What is an MLP?
In the article published in South Carolina Lawyer magazine, Horst and Mitchell defined it this way:
Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) go beyond treating symptoms to address root contextual causes that limit child and family health and well-being. Through a holistic approach, MLPs foster immediate and long-term health while removing barriers to supporting healthy child development and healthy families.
Using this approach, doctors and lawyers work together to address and prevent health-harming civil legal barriers to a person’s quality of life and health outcomes.
The timely and careful intervention of a civil legal aid attorney helps healthcare providers respond more effectively to the social needs which negatively impact health.
Horst described the classic example of a patient who goes to the doctor for breathing issues. “The patient would go home where they would get sick again and they would bring them back in,” said Horst. “There was something else happening here. Using an MLP approach, medical and legal professionals can ask questions in the intake process to identify the potential root cause(s) of the health condition.”
“The doctors say: ‘We don’t have the time, expertise, or resources to get in there and figure out what’s wrong in the home,” said Horst. “But we were trying to help. So, they reached out and asked legal services to investigate what was happening in these patients’ homes.’ That’s when they found that there was a lot of mold and landlord/tenant issues.”
But Mitchell said the data reveals “health equity improvements and patient satisfaction” for those who have employed an MLP. According to the latest data:
- Over the last decade, 333 hospitals and health centers across the U.S. have adopted the medical legal partnership (MLP) approach.
- 146 legal aid agencies and 53 law schools across 46 states collaborate on MLPs.
- Numerous pro-bono partners, medical schools, and higher education institutions partner to serve as additional community partners in the MLP approach.
“The embeddedness of the MLP is kind of the ‘secret sauce,’” said Mitchell. “You have social workers, doctors and lawyers communicating with each other. It’s an effective design and an effective way to interact with low-income people who are struggling.”
Lana Kleiman, Executive Director for Charleston Legal Access, has first-hand experience of the impact that an MLP can have on community health when she served as senior staff attorney for the New York Legal Assistance Group (“NYLAG”), the largest community health MLP in New York.
“The idea is to be able to really provide wraparound services,” said Kleiman. “Social service and medical organizations that are really trying to help the patient should provide legal services as part of the process. It is a holistic approach to patient care.”