Medical Legal Partnership welcomes first legal director

Yale New Haven Hospital, Yale School of Medicine, and the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School have named James Bhandary-Alexander, JD, as the Solomon Center’s first Medical Legal Partnership (MLP) legal director.

The MLP model brings representatives from health care and legal services together at one site to uncover and resolve legal issues affecting people’s health. With the hiring of Bhandary-Alexander, New Haven’s MLP coalition is expanding to address more patients’ needs.

“Our patients’ ability to access legal resources during their visits can be critical to their care and can help clinicians address specific health-harming legal needs quickly and effectively,” said Jennifer Willcox, JD, vice president, Legal Services, Yale New Haven Health.

Four MLPs within Yale New Haven Health/Yale Medicine work with different patient populations – children, palliative care patients and the elderly, immigrants and the formerly incarcerated.

In his new role as MLP legal director, Bhandary-Alexander will work closely with medical partners at the Transitions Clinic (part of YNHH’s Primary Care Clinic) and the HAVEN Free Clinic (operated by Yale medical, nursing, and public health students) to expand legal representation available to patients. He will also lead a strategic planning effort for YNHH to identify additional community needs and opportunities for possible expansion of the MLP at the hospital.