Mitchell Hamline student Inna Telkova (left), and Ana Pottratz Acosta, clinical instructor for Mitchell Hamline’s Medical Legal Partnership. Acosta is working to assess the legal needs of residents in St. Paul’s West Seventh Street neighborhood.
Thanks to a grant from the American Bar Endowment, Mitchell Hamline’s Medical Legal Partnership is conducting a broad assessment of the legal needs of United Family Medicine’s patients as well as residents in St. Paul’s West Seventh Street neighborhood.
Through the use of surveys and public listening sessions, the partnership is identifying pressing legal needs among patients and residents. This fall the partnership’s clinical instructor, Ana Pottratz Acosta, and Mitchell Hamline students will host education sessions and offer clinical outreach to help residents better understand how to effectively tackle legal problems and offer them assistance in doing so.
“The American Bar Foundation’s generous support will allow us to get input from the community so we can better address their legal needs,” said Laura Hermer, Mitchell Hamline faculty member and principal investigator on the grant.
Patients at United Family Medicine’s community clinic in St. Paul’s West Seventh Street neighborhood are predominantly low-income, and many are members of racial or ethnic minority communities.