Community Practice Clinic – 7750

Fall 2015
* Multi-semester course
Joanne Lindsay Flint

Students in this clinic will work with various health service students at the Phillips Neighborhood Clinic to identify and resolve legal issues affecting patients care and wellbeing. Students will develop skills that can be used in any number of practice settings, including interviewing and counseling, case management, problem-solving, persuasive fact analysis, legal drafting, negotiation, effective oral communication, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Guest speakers from the legal profession will offer expertise in various areas of the law students may encounter and community leaders will provide important knowledge of the citizens of the Phillips neighborhood. Designated classes will be devoted to “case consultation” to solve client issues and learn from one another’s perspectives and experiences.

Students will examine ethical issues lawyers are likely to encounter by using conflicts they encounter in their cases. Ethical issues include: maintaining confidentiality; identifying and managing conflicts of interest; establishing, defining the scope of and terminating the lawyer-client relationship; and allocating decision-making authority between lawyer and client.

Through participation in this course, students will be given the opportunity to change clients’ lives by helping them assert their rights and obtain necessary benefits and services. Students will learn about legal issues that affect people with health issues, the complex intersection of law and health, the medical-legal partnership (MLP) model of legal services delivery, and client-centered and holistic approaches to the lawyer-client relationship. Students will learn their own style of lawyering and ways to improve time management, client management, and communication and advocacy skills.