Yale Law School offers many ongoing projects relating to health care, health disparities, policy, and disabilities through clinical offerings as well as one of the best experiential learning programs in the country. Learn more below.
Medical-Legal Partnerships
The medical-legal partnership (MLP) model combines health and legal services at a single site of care to address social determinants of health and provide holistic care.
Our work spans across the continuum of care and life experiences serving eight patient populations. YLS students who participate in an MLP are supervised by an MLP attorney and collaborate across disciplines with physicians, nurses, social workers, community health workers, and other experts, and meet with patients at local health clinics to help address legal needs like access to government programs, housing, employment, immigration, and family law matters.
Several of these MLPs partner with legal service organizations in the area, including New Haven Legal Assistance Association, the Center for Children’s Advocacy, and Connecticut Veterans Legal Center.
Yale-New Haven Hospital General Counsel Externship
Externs have the opportunity to design an externship according to their personal interests and the needs of the YNHH General Counsel team. Past externs have worked on projects as diverse as conducting contract review to drafting memoranda examining the impact of federal policy proposals for undocumented patients in the hospital system to contributing to amicus briefs.
National Academy of Social Insurance Fellowship
The National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) Fellowship at Yale Law School provides an opportunity for Yale Law students to explore contemporary legal issues involving the evolution of social insurance in a rapidly changing economy. Individuals selected as fellows will have broad latitude to work with legal scholars affiliated with NASI from around the country to develop policy solutions of relevance state and national policymakers examining the economic risks facing workers and their families.
NASI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Washington, DC. Founded in 1986, the Academy is comprised of the nation¹s leading experts on social insurance. The Academy's mission is to advance solutions to challenges facing the nation by increasing public understanding of how social insurance contributes to economic security. Social insurance encompasses broad-based systems that help workers and their families pool risks to avoid loss of income due to retirement, death, disability, or unemployment, and to ensure access to health care.
Social insurance is an interdisciplinary field. The selected NASI Fellow will have the opportunity to establish relationships and gain invaluable insights from a diverse network of policy analysts, advisors, and researchers; political scientists, economists, and academics from other related disciplines; actuaries; congressional staff; business and industry leaders; labor union members; financial advisors; program administrators; policy advocates and grassroots organization leaders. In addition, Academy staff will provide guidance and support through the course of the fellowship.
The Global Health Justice Practicum
The GHJP leads a clinical course, the Global Health Justice Practicum, which allows Yale Law students to work with Public Health students and others on practical projects designed to advance health justice. Recent projects had students traveling to Southern Africa to develop a policy paper on comparative approaches to compensate miners for the health consequences of mining, working with groups such as Doctors Without Borders on access to medicines issues, working with a Congressional office to help shape domestic legislation promoting women’s health in sub- Saharan Africa, and working with students in another clinic on a project addressing UN accountability for introducing cholera to Haiti. Projects can also have a domestic focus, such as a project on the implications of free speech cases on the FDA’s regulatory structure, and the quality of our evidence base for pharmaceuticals.
Clinics
Many of the Law School’s clinics have ongoing projects related to health care, health disparities, health policy, and disabilities, including the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, Veterans Legal Services Clinic, Legislative Advocacy Clinic, Housing Clinic, Immigration Legal Services, and Legal Assistance Re-entry Clinic2.