The Health Advocacy and Collaboration Law Clinic is Seton Hall University School of Law’s first Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP).
Professor: Amy M. Saji
Offered: Fall & Spring semesters
Credits: 5
Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLP) are an innovative, inter-disciplinary, and inter-professional advocacy model that integrates legal services into health care settings. MLPs recognize that our health is largely driven by the social determinants of health – where we work, live, eat, play and learn. For individuals and families living in poverty who face significant health disparities and lack access to legal assistance, MLPs bridge the gap in addressing unmet legal needs by meeting clients where they are and embedding legal services into the health care team that the client trusts. MLPs prioritize collaboration, bringing together health care and legal professionals together in an upstream, preventative approach to identify and address root causes of concerns in a variety of areas, such as in housing, education, and public benefits. The MLP works holistically in its shared goal of improving patient-client well-being, positive health outcomes, and preventing legal crises from occurring.
The Health Advocacy and Collaboration Law Clinic is an academic MLP model that provides law students with the unique opportunity to lead and engage in poverty-focused legal advocacy by collaborating with a local health care organization. Clinic students will collaborate with the North Jersey Community Research Initiative (NJCRI), a community-based health care organization with over thirty years of addressing the social determinants of health, that provides comprehensive medical and social services in Newark. Under faculty supervision, law students will provide direct legal services as student attorneys; conduct training for medical and social service providers on identifying health-harming legal needs; engage in community outreach for NJCRI patients and community members; and/or participate in other forms of systemic, policy, and legislative advocacy.
The Health Advocacy and Collaboration Law Clinic has two complementary portions: a 2-hour, 1-credit, weekly seminar and a 4-credit clinical component in which students work for 180 hours on clinic cases and projects.
Students should expect to devote, on average, approximately 12-15 hours per week to meet the total 180 hours for the semester.
As with any law practice, there will be ebbs and flows throughout the semester, and students should expect occasions where considerably more or fewer hours in any given week may be required.
Students may be required to work in teams, attend team and individual supervision meetings, conduct client meetings, and participate in other clinic-related obligations during business hours. If a student is employed, they must have flexibility in their schedule to accommodate the demands of an active and dynamic law practice and business operating hours of the health care partner to participate in the clinic.
Students should be prepared to travel to and work within the health care facility’s on-site locations and neighborhood spaces in Newark. All students will be required to comply with NJCRI onboarding procedures and policies.
The 2-hour, 1-credit clinic seminar will meet weekly to address the social determinants of health, MLPs, access to justice issues, and the relevant substantive areas of poverty law. Through a combination of skills instruction, simulations, case rounds, and exercises, students will develop lawyering skills, including, but not limited to, client interviewing, client counseling, fact investigation, oral and written advocacy, and collaboration. Students will learn about and engage in client-centered and trauma-informed lawyering.
