Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership (NFMLP)

What is the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership?

The NFMLP is an initiative through which lawyers, doctors and health-care institutions work together to better the lives of children in Northeast Florida.

Through the NFMLP, Jacksonville Area Legal Aid partners with Wolfson Children’s Hospital, Nemours Children’s Specialty Care, UF Health Specialty Pediatric Clinics, Community PedsCare and the Sulzbacher Center Medical Clinic to screen for and address civil legal problems adversely affecting pediatric patients. The legal services provided through the NFMLP include help accessing health insurance and other public benefits, educational accommodations and services, housing and family law advocacy, consumer protection, guardianship, and assistance with immigration issues.

The NFMLP is part of a nationwide network of projects in which professionals from the medical and legal communities combine resources to produce outcomes for low-income and vulnerable patients (children and adults) that positively impact their health and ability to thrive.

Across the country, health-care providers serving low-income individuals and families are turning to lawyers as specialists to help keep their patients healthy and safe.

Not every illness has a biological remedy. For example, an asthmatic person will never breathe symptom free – no matter how much medication is administered – if he or she returns from the doctor’s office to mold-infested housing. An attorney can intercede to ensure that housing standards in rented properties are in compliance and that landlords keep units safely habitable. Similarly, medical-legal partnerships have achieved positive health outcomes through intervention in many areas of substantive law. JALA is engaged in a campaign to raise $1 million it has pledged to an endowment established by Baptist Health, which will match all donations at 125% up to a total of $1.25 million. The resulting $2.25 million endowment will permanently fund the NFMLP, ensuring that it will always be there for children in need.

For more information about the NFMLP, please contact Stephen Pitel at (904) 356-8371 ext 327 or stephen.pitel@jaxlegalaid.org

For more information about the endowment, please contact Dennis Harrison at (904) 356-8371 x 296 or dennis.harrison@jaxlegalaid.org.