Caillean E. Daily

The Project

Caillean (she/her/hers) will focus on providing legal representation and education to veterans experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness and income insecurity in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

In 2021, the Veterans Administration surveyed 1,773 homeless veterans; each of the top ten unmet needs reported by respondents involved legal issues. A formal medical-legal partnership (MLP) between Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania and Philadelphia-area veteran-serving medical facilities will provide veterans access to competent, accessible, and trauma-informed legal services. By meeting veterans where they are and working in conjunction with healthcare providers through a MLP, Caillean’s project will empower veterans with the assistance they need to address legal and medical needs adversely affecting their wellbeing.

Fellowship Plans

Caillean’s project is designed to increase access to a wide range of civil legal services for veterans in Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania’s core service area of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties, with specific focus on VA benefits and military discharge upgrades, through targeted outreach at veteran-serving medical facilities in the area.

Caillean will steward a continually growing number of veterans benefits and discharge upgrade cases as a member of the Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania team. She will engage with staff of veteran-serving medical facilities, including training VA healthcare teams, specifically social workers, to identify when a veteran may be facing one of a wide array of legal issues that Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania can assist with, particularly VA benefits and military discharge upgrades. She will work with the social work teams to discuss and create training materials surrounding race-, gender-, and sexual-orientation-/gender-identity-based discrimination as it relates to clients’ claims, specifically for post-traumatic stress disorder. She will conduct monthly outreach and intake, and provide direct advocacy, to reach more veterans and help them access healthcare, VA benefits, military discharge upgrades, and other legal services.

The Project

Larkin (she/her/hers) will work to improve living conditions and mitigate health disparities in East St. Louis, Illinois, and other Metro East area communities by representing tenants in housing habitability and eviction disputes and launching a medical-legal partnership with SIHF Healthcare to educate healthcare staff and patients about legal rights, and create efficient systems for patient referrals.

Once a booming industrial city, today East St. Louis bears the scars of loss of industry, dramatic depopulation, white flight, and two centuries of institutional and structural racism. As of 2022, 94.6% of East St. Louis residents identified as Black or African American, and 31.6% lived in poverty. Laws meant to ensure the safety of rental units are rarely enforced in East St. Louis. As a result, East St. Louisans face blatantly dangerous housing conditions—including sewage overflows, mold, pests, and vermin—and related severe health disparities.

Larkin decided to pursue a career in law after studying global health as an undergraduate student in the St. Louis Metro Area. She believes the law is a critical tool in combating systemic inequalities that contribute to disparities in healthcare in the St. Louis area and beyond.

Fellowship Plans

Larkin will pursue affirmative litigation against landlords who fail to maintain the safety of their units and defend clients with habitability matters from eviction. Larkin will also launch a medical-legal partnership with SIHF Healthcare. Through this partnership, Larkin will educate health care providers and community members about legal rights, identify clients in the greatest need of legal assistance, and work to ameliorate health disparities in Metro East area communities.

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The Project

Hannah’s (she/her) medical-legal partnership will help District of Columbia residents access vital public benefits, like Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps), through the provision of direct representation, city-wide assistance to case managers, and systemic advocacy.

After changes to a computer system that processes benefits eligibility, the District government’s timely and accurate processing of public benefits applications has fallen dramatically. For example, in fiscal year 2022 DC processed just 43% of SNAP applications within federally mandated timeframes, by far the worst rate in the nation. This has profound consequences for the more than 300,000 DC residents who rely on public benefits, who are disproportionately Black and other people of color. With so many residents not receiving the benefits they are entitled to, legal service providers cannot begin to represent everyone whose rights have been violated.

Hannah’s lived experience with a complex medical condition, and the experiences of her friends and clients, fuel her commitment to ensuring that people can easily access the benefits and services they need to thrive.

Fellowship Plans

During her Fellowship, Hannah will work through a medical-legal partnership to represent patients of Bread for the City’s medical clinic to appeal erroneous or delayed public benefits decisions. She will also work with non-attorney case managers to build their capacity to appeal public benefits decisions to the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH). Additionally, she will seek relief on a system-wide basis in select OAH cases, and pursue other systemic strategies to improve the processing of public benefits applications in DC.

The Project

Henry’s (he/him) project will provide low-barrier, trauma-informed legal services to Boston-area young queer and transgender people of color by establishing a community-based HIV prevention medical-legal partnership.

This Fellowship bridges a long-existing service gap between two programs within Justice Resource Institute, Inc. (JRI) programs where, due to funding restrictions, many Boston Gay Lesbian Adolescent Social Services (GLASS) clients have been unable to access the legal services offered by the Health Law Institute (HLI). Boston GLASS offers HIV prevention services to Boston-area Queer, Trans, Black, and Indigenous people of color (QTBIPOC) ages 13-29. In Massachusetts, sharp racial disparities persist in measures of HIV risk: Hispanic/Latino individuals face nearly four times the risk of HIV infection than white individuals and Black individuals face nearly eight times the risk of white individuals. By extending HLI’s legal services to the clients at Boston GLASS, Henry will work in tandem with GLASS professionals to address the health-harming legal needs that tend to place the GLASS client population at heightened risk of HIV infection.

Henry is a gay man who has lived in the Boston area for almost all his life. He is interested in health justice, particularly as it pertains to HIV/AIDS.

Fellowship Plans

By extending HLI’s medical-legal partnership model to Boston GLASS, Henry will be able to meet community members where they are. He will work alongside skilled providers who have cultivated trusting relationships with clients to effectuate holistic, wrap-around, trauma-informed legal services. Henry will leverage this dynamic to provide advice, brief services, and full representation in housing, public benefits, and discrimination matters. He will also provide education and training to Boston GLASS staff and community members so that they can issue-spot health-harming legal needs and seek out appropriate resources. Henry will also build out HLI’s existing data collection and analysis capacity to promote the sustainability of the HIV prevention legal services model.

The Project

Through the Georgetown University Health Justice Alliance Perinatal Legal Assistance & Well-being (P-LAW) Project, Courtney (she/her/hers) will increase economic security for perinatal patients through direct legal representation, patient and provider education, and systemic advocacy.

Washington, D.C. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country, and Black patients experience higher rates of pregnancy-related death and preterm birth than white patients. Economic instability is a key driver of these health disparities, which can contribute to chronic stress, poor nutrition, and a higher risk of dangerous health conditions. While perinatal patients experiencing income insecurity often qualify for public benefits and child support, these programs are difficult to navigate and frequently require legal intervention to access. Courtney’s project seeks to reduce barriers to economic security for perinatal patients at MedStar Washington Hospital Center (MWHC), most of whom are Black and live in communities that are underserved by health and social services.

During law school, Courtney spent three semesters working on economic security legal issues with clients served by the Georgetown University Health Justice Alliance. Courtney was inspired to respond to the stress-inducing legal barriers that prevent many families from accessing critical benefits and income support.

Fellowship Plans

In partnership with P-LAW, Courtney will develop a new screening tool to determine if a patient is not fully accessing available benefits. She will represent patients who were wrongfully denied access in appeals. Courtney will also create a range of materials and opportunities for perinatal patients to understand their rights related to income support, including tailored “Know Your Rights” materials and a monthly “Ask an Attorney” walk-up table in the obstetrics waiting room at MWHC. To further the impact of her Fellowship, Courtney will engage patients and health care providers in advocacy efforts to improve the public benefit and child support systems in Washington, D.C.

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The Project

Dawn (she/her) will help tackle the legal needs of South Jersey residents with opioid and other substance use disorders (SUDs) by providing direct legal services, developing and sharing resources, and advocating for systemic change, with a particular focus on housing justice and tenant rights.

The opioid crisis continues to exact a devastating toll on South Jersey residents. Patients seeking treatment must address the medical and psychological impact of addiction, as well as the myriad of legal issues stemming from years of active use. Dawn’s Fellowship will expand legal offerings to practices and clinics serving primarily Black and Hispanic Camden residents with substance use disorders. She will also include educational, reform, and advocacy components to amplify its impact. This work includes providing education to patients and medical professionals regarding legal issues as well as trainings for attorneys and courts regarding substance use disorder.

Dawn draws from her lived experience as a person with substance use disorder and the adversities she faced in overcoming the obstacles in early recovery. She has strong ties to the South Jersey area and is excited to be based in Camden.

Fellowship Plans

Dawn will represent SUD patients facing civil legal needs including housing, child welfare, family law issues such as child custody and DV, and benefits. She will also develop and pursue policy reforms to address identified issues for New Jersey SUD patients with a particular focus on housing justice.

The Project

Milo’s (he/him/his) project will provide holistic legal representation to low-income transgender clients in Chicago facing insurance coverage denials for transition-related medical care.

Transgender people face significant barriers to obtaining transition-related healthcare. Despite the overwhelming consensus of medical associations and clinicians that transition-related healthcare is effective, medically necessary, and often life-saving, transgender patients must navigate a complex and ever-changing array of health insurance policies to obtain coverage for surgery, while simultaneously attempting to update their names and gender markers on identification documents. Furthermore, the poverty rate for transgender people is 29%, twice that of the general population. Lack of economic security compounds issues of access to medical care for low-income transgender people, who also face barriers to public assistance access. Without comprehensive legal assistance across these issues, many transgender people are barred from essential medical care, economic security, and full civic participation.

Milo’s experiences fighting for his own and others’ healthcare have shown him the power of legal advocacy to create meaningful change in people’s lives.

Fellowship Plans

During his Fellowship, Milo will utilize the medical-legal partnership between Legal Council for Health Justice and Howard Brown Health to provide holistic legal services to transgender clients. He will represent clients facing insurance denials for transition-related healthcare. He will offer legal assistance with the processes of name and gender marker changes on vital records. Additionally, he will advocate for clients’ economic security by providing comprehensive legal assistance with public benefits.

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The Project

Majesta-Doré’s (she/her/hers) project will partner Legal Aid Justice Center with VCU Health System’s Emergency Department and nearby low-fee community clinics to combat health-harming legal needs that perpetuate health disparities in Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia.

Healthcare access is fraught for patients with low-income, non-citizen status, and other marginalized identities. Health Justice requires removing discriminatory barriers and providing broader access to legal tools before health-harming legal needs reach crisis level.

Despite VCU Health System consistently ranking in the top 100 medical centers in the country, Richmond and Petersburg County rank at the bottom in the 2021 health rankings. Social determinants of health, such as the high eviction rate, barriers in stable access to care, and access to lifeline benefits such as TANF and SNAP all contribute to these outcomes. Medical-legal partnerships improve patient outcomes, overall wellness, and reduce health disparities.

Majesta-Doré’s experience living with chronic illnesses and navigating the complicated U.S. healthcare system strengthens her resolve to combat barriers to stable access to care.

Fellowship Plans

During her Fellowship, Majesta-Doré will establish a medical-legal partnership with VCU Health System to provide wrap-around legal services to patients in the Emergency Department. In the MLP, Majesta-Doré will counsel patients on health insurance appeals, appeal improper denials of public benefits, and train medical providers to spot legal needs warranting referral. Majesta-Doré will also work with community partners to provide community education about access to care.

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The Project

Audrey is advocating for gender-based violence survivors by expanding the Sanctuary for Families EMPOWER Center, making it the first Medical-Legal Partnership in New York City to provide family law representation to survivors of sex and labor trafficking.

Estimates for the population of human trafficking survivors in New York City are in the thousands, yet only 338 cases were reported and confirmed in 2020. One of the biggest reasons for this disparity is that survivors fear that, by coming forward, they may risk violent retaliation from their abusers and losing custody of their children. New York’s child welfare system disproportionately separates Black, immigrant, and low-income families, and often penalizes survivors who find themselves particularly vulnerable to ongoing abuse. Being able to access an interdisciplinary team of anti-trafficking attorneys, social workers, and medical providers who can address essential family law issues is critical in supporting trafficking survivors.

When survivors don’t have access to advocates to help them protect themselves and their children, it sends a clear message: their experiences are not important enough for representation. Survivors deserve safety, to remain together as a family, and holistic support to achieve their goals.

Audrey’s social work background in advocating for survivors of domestic violence and sex trafficking has motivated her to continue combating gender-based violence through direct legal services.

Fellowship Plans

As a Fellow, Audrey will combat gender-based violence by providing representation through direct services, training to expand the network of legal support available, and policy advocacy to address institutional discrimination against BIPOC survivors in the removal and termination of parental rights processes. This project will also include family reunification for formerly incarcerated survivors and resources for collateral civil legal services related to surviving abuse.

The Project

Maya (she/her/hers) will establish a farmworker Medical-Legal Partnership hosted by the Central West Justice Center and in partnership with the Connecticut River Valley Farmworker Health Program to provide holistic care and advocacy in housing, benefits, and employment matters to farmworkers in Massachusetts.

Thousands of farmworkers in Western Massachusetts work for long hours and low pay to put food on our tables. In addition to extremely hazardous labor, farmworkers are twice as likely to live in severe poverty, face housing instability, poor living conditions, and food insecurity. Some farmworkers are also isolated and difficult to reach through traditional legal aid models. Maya’s project will develop and implement a Medical-Legal Partnership to address farmworkers’ unmet legal needs and work with medical clinic staff to improve the health and wellbeing of farmworkers and their families.

Maya is passionate about improving access to critical services for farmworkers in her community and aims to use her legal education to fight for the health justice and legal rights of this underserved population.

Fellowship Plans

During her Fellowship, Maya will represent farmworker clients with their housing, benefits, and employment needs. She will be on-site in the farmworker medical clinic to provide advice and consultation to farmworkers. Maya will also engage with farmworkers and other organizations to conduct outreach and training on the rights and resources available to farmworkers. Finally, Maya will engage in policy advocacy on issues impacting farmworker health at the state and national levels.

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