How the Medical-Legal Partnership Program Works

Providers, nurses, social workers, and other clinical team members can refer patients to the MLP when they identify a legal need. We will then work with the patient to connect them to an attorney at one of our community partners.

MLP accepts referrals from ten different clinical and community locations (plus other referrals on a case-by-case basis). Depending on the legal issue and the referral location, we may have different residence, income, and citizenship requirements. VCU Health team members can learn more about MLP and make a referral by accessing our SharePoint site.

How to Access Legal Services

Patients at any of the clinical locations we serve can ask their provider, nurse, social worker, or outreach worker about a referral to MLP.

We are onsite at the Children’s Hospital Outpatient Pavilion Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:00am to 4:00pm. MLP is located within the Family Resource Center (FRC) on Level 1 (Sky Lobby), across from the Sibling Center.

Central Virginia Legal Aid Society also hosts drop-in attorney office hours at the VCU Health Hub at 25th. Hours are 12:00pm to 4:00pm, Mondays and Wednesdays. Community members do not need to be VCU Health System patients to access these free legal services.

Areas of Law We Cover

The MLP offers services on most civil legal issues, including:

• Consumer law (bankruptcy, debt collection, predatory lending)
• Education (individual education & 504 plans, bullying, truancy)
• Employment (discrimination, unlawful termination, FMLA)
• Estate planning (wills, power of attorney, advance medical directives)
• Family law (domestic violence, custody and visitation, guardianship)
• Housing (eviction, landlord/tenant, conditions and repairs)
• Immigration (asylum, withholding of removal, Convention Against Torture, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status)
• Public benefits (appeals for Medicaid, SSDI, SSI, SNAP, TANF)

Areas of Law We Do NOT Cover

MLP attorneys cannot help with:

• Criminal law cases
• Traffic cases
• Medical malpractice cases
• Personal injury or worker’s compensation cases

Our Legal Partners

The Medical-Legal Partnership collaborates with six local partners to best support the legal needs of patients and families at VCU Health. Legal services are provided through MLP's community legal partners:

• Central Virginia Legal Aid Society
• Legal Aid Justice Center
• CancerLINC
• McGuireWoods
• Dominion Energy
• University of Richmond School of Law

Additionally, we work with attorneys at law firms around Central Virginia who take pro bono cases for MLP clients on an ad hoc basis. Attorneys interested in handling pro bono cases for the MLP can register with JusticeServer and select “MLP-Richmond at VCU” as one of your legal service organizations.