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Medical-Legal Partnership Project

The Medical-Legal Partnership Project helps Vermonters with legal needs that may harm their health. We have three partnerships with Vermont medical providers.

In our partnership with UVM Medical Center, we work with care managers to address their patients' civil legal problems. Through the Legal Assistance in Recovery Services project, we partner with medication-assisted treatment (MAT) clinics around the state. We help people with substance use disorder to overcome legal obstacles to their recovery. We also work with DULCE to provide legal support to families with newborn children. It’s a partnership with several pediatric practices and parent-child centers.

We give advice and represent Vermonters in a wide variety of areas, including:

  • expungement of criminal records
  • evictions and habitability in rental housing
  • emergency housing for people without a home
  • custody and visitation
  • public benefits
  • and driver's license reinstatement.

We also train and support our medical partners. In addition, we advocate for state policies that improve the lives of our clients.

Rebecca, a VLA medical-legal partnership lawyer

VLA Staff Stories

Meet Rebecca, a VLA medical-legal partnership lawyer

Rebecca is on a team that helps people like Margaret with legal needs that impact their health.

Margaret became addicted to opioids after an injury. She forged checks and prescriptions to feed her addiction. After time in prison, she began treatment.

She and her young children lived in a one-bedroom apartment with no place for the kids to play. She was turned down from better housing because of her criminal record. Her back injury got worse and she couldn’t work. She got disability benefits, but they stopped when she did not complete paperwork on time.

We helped Margaret clear her record so she could get a better place to live. Her dismissed charges and misdemeanor convictions were expunged. She moved her family into a larger apartment.

We also helped her ask for continuing disability benefits while she gave Social Security access to medical records that were needed.

To protect anonymity and confidentiality, some names and details in these stories have been changed.

More VLA Staff Stories