Not every illness has a biological cause.  A family forced to choose between food and heat in the winter months cannot be treated with a prescription or a vaccination.  Doctors at Boston Medical Center (BMC), New England’s largest safety-net hospital, face this dilemma every day.  Fifty percent of BMC’s patient population has an income below poverty level, making them particularly vulnerable to the environmental and social stressors that create serious civil legal issues for more than one-half of all low- and moderate-income households.  It is often these unmet basic needs which repeatedly force families into their doctor’s office.

In 1993, Chief of Pediatrics, Dr. Barry Zuckerman, recognized that a lawyer was needed to help patients navigate the complex legal systems that hold solutions to many social determinants of health—income supports for food insecure families, utility shut-off protection during cold winter months, and mold removal from the home of asthmatic children.  The Medical-Legal Partnership for Children (MLPC) was founded to combine the strengths of the medical and legal professions to reduce health disparities for low-income families.

What began with a single founding attorney, Joshua Greenberg, working part-time at BMC has morphed into a team of fourteen lawyers and paralegals partnered with front line health care staff at BMC and six affiliated community health centers to ensure families’ basic needs—for food, housing and safety and stability—are met.