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�´���������Ұհ���– Leaders from Georgetown University’s Health Justice Alliance discuss how the medical-legal partnership (MLP) benefits both law and medical students on the of LSC's “Talk Justice” podcast, released yesterday. LSC President Ronald S. Flagg hosts the conversation with guests professor Vicki Girard, faculty director of the Georgetown Health Justice Alliance; Dr. Eileen Moore, medical director of the Health Justice Alliance and associate dean of the Georgetown School of Medicine; and Dr. Ana Caskin, deputy medical director of the Health Justice Alliance and director of the Anacostia and Roosevelt School based Health Centers. 

MLPs are a legal service delivery model in which medical and legal professionals collaborate to create better outcomes for people whose medical problems have a legal remedy. Georgetown’s Health Justice Alliance is a cross-campus collaboration that engages in research, direct service to patients and clients, and academic training, especially around addressing social determinants of health for marginalized communities. 

Professor Girard explains that most often, people who are seeking medical treatment are not aware of their legal rights that relate to the issue, or don’t know how to pursue enforcing their rights.  

“We as lawyers and people that are committed to offering legal services, we can use those trusted spaces that people have with their doctors and their healthcare providers to get to people early, so it's really trying to go upstream and provide access to justice for people that wouldn't normally seek out lawyers,” professor Girard says.  

Academically, the Health Justice Alliance brings a unique opportunity to train students to think about their disciplines in relation to another field. Dr. Moore has seen that the collaboration with law students expands the medical students’ toolbox of resources to help patients.  

“Generally, when a physician asks the medical history and the social history portion of the medical history, that discussion becomes truncated a bit because there has in the past been this feeling of ‘well, if I ask these questions and don't have any way to intervene or help, what is the point?’” Dr. Moore says. “Now we can dig deep with those patients—because we have a toolbox working with our law colleagues to be able to address these health-harming social determinants of health.” 

Professor Girard says that beyond the benefits to students and patients, academic MLPs are able to contribute to the broader conversation about the medical-legal service delivery model because of universities’ access to research and evaluation practices that can demonstrate their success.   

“One of the things that we've seen is that, as you begin to raise awareness among the clinic staff, you have more and more people who are able to spot health-harming legal needs,” says Dr. Caskin. “So, it really does tend to have a ripple effect in terms of how people can help connect families with the legal services they need.” 

Talk Justice episodes are and on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple and other popular podcast apps. The podcast is sponsored by LSC’s Leaders Council. 

The next episode of the podcast will explore the disconnect between how courts were designed to function—with lawyers engaging in adversarial litigation—and how they actually function today—often without lawyers.