Tysha Vaughn ’11 spent last summer as a legal intern with the Rhode Island Department of Health’s Healthy Homes and Environment Team, working on...
Upcoming Events
- Pro Bono Collaborative Cocktail Reception
- MAY
30 - 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm
- Citizens Plaza Rotunda
- Philadelphia Area Law Alumni Reception
- JUN
06 - 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Open House for Admitted Students
- JUN
10 - 9:15 am - 1:30 pm
- RWU Law, Ten Metacom Avenue, Bristol, RI 02809
- Law Alumni Association Breakfast/School of Law 20th Anniversary Celebration Kick-off
- JUN
13 - 7:45 am - 9:15 am
- Rhode Island Convention Center, First Floor West Lobby, Providence
- Bridging The Gap: Restart and Recharge Your Legal Career
- JUN
20 - 8:30 am - 4:00 pm
- RWU School of Law
Medical-Legal Partnership
The Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) model was founded in the pediatrics department at Boston Medical Center in 1993. Since then, the idea of bringing legal teams into healthcare settings to address health-related legal needs has spread throughout the United States, with programs in 235 health institutions in 38 states. MLP attorneys provide on-site assistance to patients needing legal help in the form of consultations, brief advice, and direct legal representation. For more information about Medical-Legal Partnership, go to www.medical-legalpartnership.org
The School of Law has been at the forefront of the MLP movement. It was a critical partner in developing one of the first MLPs in the country, the Rhode Island Medical-Legal Partnership for Children, started at Hasbro Children’s Hospital with Rhode Island Legal Services in 2002. RIMLPC is a partnership among the School of Law, Brown Medical School, Hasbro Children’s Hospital and the Rhode Island Center for Law and Public Policy. Two RIMLPC attorneys work on-site at Hasbro Children’s Hospital to address the legal needs of low-income pediatric patients and their families. Law students have the opportunity to work on-site at the hospital under the direction of the RIMLPC attorneys through the law school’s externship and public service programs.
The School of Law was also the first law school in the country to offer an interdisciplinary course focused on medical-legal partnership. In 2003, Director of Public Service and Community Partnerships, Liz Tobin Tyler, partnered with Brown Medical School to pilot a joint course for law and medical students focused on the social determinants of health and the law. The course, “Poverty, Health and Law: The Medical-Legal Partnership” has become a model for other law school and medical schools developing similar courses.
Liz Tobin Tyler is also the senior editor of the first casebook on medical-legal partnership published by Carolina Academic Press in August 2011, entitled, Poverty, Health and Law: Readings and Cases for Medical-Legal Partnership.