PROFESSOR MAKHLOUF COAUTHORS ARTICLE PROPOSING A HEALTH JUSTICE AGENDA FOR LAW SCHOOL CLINICS
November 2021 — Professor Medha D. Makhlouf recently co-authored an article, “Setting the Health Justice Agenda: Addressing Health Inequity and Injustice in the Post-Pandemic Clinic,” providing law school clinics of all kinds with six maxims to advance health justice. The article is published in the symposium issue of the Clinical Law Review, titled “2020 Hindsight: The Pandemic, Protests, and Political Perils.” Professor Makhlouf’s coauthors on the article are Emily A. Benfer, James Bhandary-Alexander, Yael Cannon, and Tomar Pierson-Brown—all faculty involved with medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) at other law schools.
The article begins by defining the goal of health justice as eliminating health inequities that are linked to structural causes like subordination, discrimination, and poverty. In Part I, the coauthors provide an overview of the relationship between structural injustice and the disparate health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also describe the role of legal interventions in achieving health justice. In Part II, the coauthors examine how MLPs have used health justice frameworks to address complex problems of law, health, discrimination, and poverty. Part III draws on the coauthors’ experiences directing law clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic describes six maxims for law clinics to adopt to advance health justice. The coauthors conclude by noting the particular relevance of this discussion during a global public health emergency, but they urge readers to recognize that the maxims for health justice also transcend the current moment.
Professor Makhlouf conceived of the idea of proposing an article to the symposium issue after she realized that law faculty involved with MLP clinics may have a unique and interesting perspective to share about their experience working through a pandemic. She reached out to her coauthors to inquire about their interest—all of whom she had collaborated with in the past. Through a series of discussions, the coauthors came to agreement on a topic that would showcase the unique contributions of academic MLPs to the larger clinical and MLP communities. The symposium editors offered to publish the article on the basis of an abstract in June 2021, and the coauthors worked through the summer and early fall to draft and finalize the article.
Professor Makhlouf will draw on the maxims for health justice described in the article in her presentation at the Summit on Health Justice on December 10, 2021, organized by faculty and administrators at Penn State Dickinson Law and Penn State College of Medicine.
Professor Medha D. Makhlouf is an Assistant Professor and Founding Director of the Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic at Penn State Dickinson Law. She has a joint appointment in the Department of Public Health Sciences at Penn State College of Medicine. Professor Makhlouf’s research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of health law, immigrants’ rights, and poverty law and policy. Her recent scholarship has been published in the New York University Law Review, the California Law Review Online, the Northwestern University Law Review Online, and the American Journal of Law and Medicine.