Our faculty, clinicians, health care professionals, students, and policy experts take a collaborative approach to achieving that goal by using law as a tool to improve individual health and wellbeing, transform the systems used to deliver healthcare, and advance Georgetown’s broader goals for health, justice, and racial equity in the District and nationally.

Formally launched in Fall 2016 with support from Georgetown’s Law and Medical Centers, the HJA is grounded in the national Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) movement’s approach to healthcare, which offers a holistic solution for advancing health justice by adding lawyers to the treatment team.

As an Academic MLP, the Health Justice Alliance is training the next generation of Georgetown leaders in medicine and law to work together to address the health-harming social conditions that contribute to health and justice disparities that disproportionately impact vulnerable individuals, families, and children.

By making a legal check-up part of routine healthcare, MLPs identify where advocacy is needed to solve or prevent problems that negatively impact health. On a broader scale, MLPs create multidisciplinary teams of doctors, lawyers, nurses, and other professionals committed to advancing health equity by using law and policy to implement upstream solutions to combat social determinants of health.