By MATT CHANDLER and QINA LIU
mchandler@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1654

As executive director of Neighborhood Legal Services Inc., Bill Hawkes sees firsthand the struggles of low-income families in Western New York. Now, with the help of a Boston physician and a host of local businesspeople, he wants to help create an expanded Medical Legal Partnership.

The premise is simple: Low-income families often receive inferior medical care because they don't know their rights when faced with legal challenges. While a middle-class family may hire a lawyer to help, that isn't usually an option for someone with a low income and thus they may be shortchanged when it comes to legal assistance for medical issues.

Last week, Hawkes took part in the Medical Legal Partnership Summit in Buffalo aimed at bringing the community together and building a coalition to advance the concept.

"We had a really wonderful turnout, including people from various community agencies, physicians, health-care providers and lawyers from legal services programs from not only Buffalo but also Rochester, Geneva and Albany. Based on the evaluations we received, people were impressed with the information that was presented, as well," he said.

Among the presenters was Barry Zuckerman, M.D., founder of the National Center for Medical Legal Partnerships. He's also chairman of the department of pediatrics at Boston Medical Center.

The national center was formed in response to community need, according to Zuckerman.

"I was confronted by my low-income patients because of a lot of factors in their home and community," he said. "I learned over time that there are a number of legal issues that can keep low-income families from accessing health care."

He recalled a child who was hospitalized with asthma problems due to mold in the family's apartment. The landlord refused to fix the problem but, with the help of a lawyer, the family and landlord eventually resolved the problem and the child recovered.

Zuckerman said housing and environmental issues, utility shutoffs, evictions, domestic violence, disabilities and denial of food stamps and health-care access all contribute to poor heath among low-income families.

"Medical Legal Partnerships (were) an attempt to see that families had their needs met," he said.

He started the program in Boston 18 years ago. Since then, it has grown to more than 220 clinics at everywhere from Harvard and Stanford universities to small, rural towns. Currently, the partnership reaches Boston, New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Montana and other cities in 37 states.

Doctors and lawyers collaborate after hearing about the program and the response has been impressive, according to Zuckerman.

"It's always done on a community basis," he said. "It really grows from the community to address a local program."

The success of the Medical Legal Partnership is based on a grass-roots effort within the individual cities, he added.

"What I think is most exciting about this is people in the community hear about it and want to do it," he said. "It's being done by leaders who say this makes sense and want to do something about it."

Hawkes, meanwhile, said two prime challenges must be met before a full medical legal partnership can get off the ground locally. The first is funding and the second is building relationships with area medical providers.

"Given the state of the economy, state and federal funding may be difficult to come by right now," he said. "We are going to look more toward foundations and grants for possible funding."

As far as support from the medical community, Hawkes said other cities have sought financial support from hospitals and been successful.

"They do that (support the program) because they realize the benefit they get from the return on investment, in terms of Medicaid and health insurance recovery, is many times the amount of the investment they make," he said. "They also realize that when the lawyers get involved and we are assisting these low-income people, that reduces the stress these families face, which ultimately improves their overall health."

Beyond funding and support from the health-care community, Hawkes said the concept has the support of the community at large - based on turnout at the recent summit.

"The people who came recognized the value of the program," he said, "especially in an area where the poverty rate is so high and the access to medical resources within the urban core is becoming more and more limited."

His organization has been involved in a limited-scope Medical Legal Partnership with Roswell Park Cancer Institute since 2004. The plan now is to expand and build on its success.

"We have been fortunate to get the funding to work with people affected by cancer," he said. "We have had a relationship with Roswell since 2004 and we have been working onsite, doing intakes and helping those people get assistance."

As for grading the summit, Hawkes said he and others who are actively involved in creating an expanded Medical Legal Partnership here are "invigorated" and ready to take the next step.

"We would like to be able to expand into a non-cancer grant medical partnership by the end of this year," he said. "It may be on a small scale, but my goal is to have a paralegal and an attorney assigned to a health clinic before the end of the year."