Description

The Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) Staff Attorney works on a team of attorneys who meet clients where they are, in this case on-site with health care clinicians. They work collaboratively to promote physical, mental, and emotional health through integrated legal services with a primary focus on working directly with patient-clients to help solve a wide range of legal issues. Texas Legal Services Center (TLSC) MLPs are based on the national MLP model of increasing access to justice while mitigating socio-legal determinants of health—such as lack of access to care, financial and food insecurity, housing instability, and personal uncertainty. Attorneys are expected to work in-person on certain days both at the TLSC office and on-site at the clinic with the health care team to detect, address, and prevent health-harming legal issues for patients and communities. It is exciting and rewarding work on a supportive legal aid team.

Requirements

• Ability to develop a sophisticated understanding of the MLP model and its approach to civil legal services as well as its place in the U.S. healthcare system.
• Ability and willingness to learn how to represent and advocate for patients with  health-harming legal needs in two or more of the “IHELP” categories, which are:
  • Income, including public benefit appeals or consumer law;
  • Insurance, including eligibility for and coverage by public and private plans;
  • Housing, including eviction, habitability, landlord-tenant disputes, and utilities;
  • Education, including IDEA and Rehabilitation Act §504;
  • Employment, including the Family and Medical Leave Act;
  • Legal Status, including name and gender-marker change, credit history, expunction/nondisclosure, and immigration; and
  • Personal Stability, including guardianship and alternatives, advance directives, and wills, or family law.
• Current knowledge of the law and legal system, especially in areas that affect low-income and marginalized communities.
• Excellent legal research and advocacy skills.
• Strong analytical skills and attention-to-detail.
• Exceptional listening, written and oral communications skills.
• Proficiency with Adobe, social media tools, and Microsoft Office products.
• Proficiency with or ability to learn TLSC’s case management system and the clinic’s electronic health record and enterprise practice management system.
• Ability to understand grant requirements and associated reporting needs.
• Ability to learn new technologies to carry out job functions.
• Ability to work with clients in a patient, trauma-informed, and non-judgmental manner.
• Ability to travel to out-of-town locations.

Preferred: Spanish language skills.