DCVLP Expands Medical-Legal Partnership to Children’s National Primary Care-Shaw Metro & AIDS Healthcare Center Capitol Hill

Yesterday DCVLP began operating its newest community-based legal clinic at Children’s National Primary Care-Shaw Metro. Through this clinic, which is open to the public every Wednesday from 9:30 AM – 1:30 PM, DC residents can access free legal advice on domestic violence, family law, and immigration matters.

DCVLP first established its Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLP) in 2021 through an Equal Justice Works project sponsored by DLA Piper and the Verizon Foundation. MLPs are an innovate approach to integrating the unique expertise of lawyers into health care settings to help clinicians, case managers, and social workers address structural problems at the root of so many health inequities.

As part of this project DCVLP welcomed EJW Fellow, Maddie Glennie, in 2021 to implement two MLPs co-located at Children’s National Primary Care in Columbia Heights and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. During her two year fellowship, Maddie has conducted hundreds of legal intakes on site and provided survivors with direct representation in protection order, immigration, and family law cases. DCVLP’s Medical-Legal Partnerships have made a tremendous impact over the last two years. We are thrilled that additional funding from the Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants and the Verizon Foundation has enabled MLPs to be adopted permanently as part of the DCVLP service model and these two clinics, which were started as part of the Equal Justice Works project, to continue as a resource for the community.

Piggybacking off the success of the original two MLPs, we are elated that a 3 year funding award from the US Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women has enabled us to add two new clinic locations at Children’s National Primary Care-Shaw Metro (opened November 15, 2023) and AIDS Healthcare Center Capitol Heights (opening in early December 2023.) We are delighted to share that DCVLP has hired two new staff attorneys to provide legal advice at our two newest MLP locations. Ricardo Gomez joined DCVLP in October 2023 and Courtney Federico will join in December 2023. Ricardo and Courtney will staff the two new MLP clinics and provide direct representation for survivors of violence in their immigration and protection order cases.

We appreciate the opportunity to provide this important service to our community and remain deeply grateful to the Equal Justice Works Foundation, DLA Piper, and the Verizon Foundation for supporting the initial launch of DCVLP’s Medical-Legal Partnerships in 2021 and to the Office of Victim Services Justice Grants and the Verizon Foundation for the continued support of our existing MLPs and to the US Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women for funding to support the expansion to two new MLP clinics.