Recommended Standards and Guidelines for Medical-Legal Partnerships in Texas

Disclaimer: These standards are recommendations, not requirements, developed by the Board of Directors of the Texas Medical-Legal Partnership Coalition. If you have feedback about these guidelines, contact us anytime.

The Texas Medical-Legal Partnership Coalition (“the Coalition”) consists of a network of medical-legal partnership practitioners and other interested professionals across Texas. The medical-legal partnership (MLP) model helps address the health-harming legal needs of patients in hospitals, clinics, and other facilities by embedding legal professionals into health settings. MLPs help patients, their families, and their communities meet health-related social needs, such as for safe housing, appropriate schooling, access to medical care, and financial stability. MLPs also address social determinants of health by creating a culture of health justice and advocacy, transforming clinical practice, and ensuring that expertise in the structures that predominantly shape health are integrated parts of the delivery of healthcare.

The Coalition’s goals are to create a community of MLPs and other resource partners who can share their work, expertise, and best practices among its members; advise and provide technical assistance to organizations wishing to establish an MLP; advocate for health-affirming laws and policies; and promote the development and operation of MLPs, including access to resource materials for establishing an MLP.

Our mission is to improve the health of all Texans by supporting and promoting collaboration between legal and health professionals to address the structural problems that underlie health inequities and contribute to health-harming legal needs. The Texas Medical-Legal Partnership Coalition serves as a network and coordinating body to leverage these partnerships and their work, as well as to build stronger relationships and promote best practices in the development and operation of MLPs. Consistent with this mission, the Texas Medical-Legal Partnership Coalition adopts the following Recommended Standards and Guidelines:

  1. MLPs should include active participation by, as well as in-kind and/or financial support from, partner institutions in the legal, medical, and/or public health sectors to shape health outcomes.

  2. MLP lawyers should serve as an integrated, in-residence part of health care delivery for patients who have health-harming legal needs.

  3. MLPs may start as formalized referral networks, but should strive to operate as an integrated medical-legal partnership model, with legal services embedded in health care settings and clinical practices. For example, more mature MLPs often have formal screening processes to assess and meet patient-client health-harming legal needs, and they share data and other systems. Each MLP should assess their individual level of integration to identify potential gaps in service and strengthen the relationship between internal partners.

  4. MLPs should provide a range of services including, but not limited to, provider training, legal consultation, direct patient-client services, referral patient-client services, clinical practice transformation, community engagement, and systemic advocacy. MLPs should use a variety of methods to serve their population and address their legal needs in partnership with other involved professionals. 

  5. The Texas Coalition is open to MLP practitioners and individual stakeholders who may be involved in legal, medical, and/or other health professions. Such Organizations and individuals will be considered and referred to as “members.” MLPs may participate despite stage of development, whether it be as a loose or integrated partnership between organizations.

  6. The Coalition will help member MLPs develop program improvements through sharing of experiences to inform best practices. The Coalition will propose healthcare policy changes at the local, state, and national levels, as may be allowed for nonprofit and public entities.

  7. To accomplish the foregoing, to improve quality of services, and to demonstrate improvements based on the impact of their activities, each member will, to the extent permitted by their partners, collect and share de-identified outcomes data, publications, and impact work by members.

  8. The Coalition will engage in education and training to provide opportunities for the next generation of health care, public health, and legal professionals to learn more about the MLP model through external outreach to professional organizations, higher education institutions, and other health and healthcare stakeholders.

  9. The Coalition will endeavor to serve as a resource to the community; private law firms and practitioners; local, state, and national Bar associations, and other interested members of the legal sector to align with the access-to-justice movement. The Coalition will promote systemic advocacy projects through pro bono services and consultations. The Coalition will strive to increase MLP visibility and general awareness of pro bono opportunities in supporting MLPs in addressing legal issues affecting patients.. 

  10. The MLPs are encouraged to appoint at least one member to participate in Coalition activities on behalf of that MLP. Persons participating as individual volunteers without formal association with any particular MLP or other organization are also encouraged to participate in the work of the Coalition.