National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership

Medical‐legal partnership (MLP) is an approach to health that integrates the work of healthcare, public health, and civil legal aid to more effectively identify, treat, and prevent health‐harming legal needs for patients, clinics, and populations. MLP addresses legal needs in the areas of income supports and insurance; housing and utilities; employment and education; legal status; and personal and family stability. MLP:

  • Trains healthcare, public health, and legal teams to work collaboratively and identify needs upstream;
  • Treats individual patients’ health‐harming social and legal needs with legal care ranging from triage and consultations to legal representation;
  • Transforms clinic practice and institutional policies to better respond to patients’ health‐harming social and legal needs; and
  • Prevents health‐harming legal needs broadly by detecting patterns and improving policies and regulations that have an impact on population health. 

Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University, 2006

Evidence Rating: II

Cost: Free

Additional Info:

Topics:

Case Management/Care Coordination Insurance Coverage Other Risk Assessment

Perinatal Periods:

Parenting Postpartum Pre-/Inter-conception Prenatal

Resource types:

Other Tools and informational materials for participants Tools for providers

Back to Evidence-Based Practices »