In order to help civil legal aid programs document and describe their crucial contributions to the health of their communities, the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership (NCMLP) released a comprehensive guide to collecting health and health care data in LegalServer, a case management system used by many civil legal aid organizations. Click here to download the free guide.
There are currently 126 civil legal aid organizations working with 294 hospitals and health centers at medical-legal partnerships across the U.S. Civil legal needs have an enormous impact on health, and civil legal aid organizations are in a position to help health care address both health and cost, while also uncovering new funding opportunities and partnerships for their organizations. However, to enable health care organizations, policymakers, and potential funders to embrace and fund civil legal aid as its partner, consistent, uniform data is needed to clearly communicate civil legal aid’s value to health care—locally, statewide, and nationally.
The guide – which provides LegalServer users with an overview of the new fields and step-by-step instructions for how to add them – was designed by Mallory Curran, JD, a consultant and Senior Advisor to NCMLP who drew on her previous experience as a frontline medical-legal partnership staff attorney, supervisor and manager. The guide was developed with input from six civil legal aid offices with active medical-legal partnerships: Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. (Delaware); Community Legal Services of Philadelphia; Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, Inc.; Legal Aid of Arkansas; Legal Aid of Western New York, Inc.; and Montana Legal Services Association.
If your civil legal aid organization uses a different case management system such as Legal Files, Pika, or Prime / Kemps, and you’re interested in collecting similar data, please contact Mallory Curran at mallory@mallorycurran.com.