Pro bono. A Model Approach
| Author | Amanda Robert |
| Pages | 62-68 |
ABA Insider | PRO BONO
community is so important. I know she
loves it.”
‘One employee at a time’
Since BeanZ & Co. opened, Alix spends
her Saturdays taking orders, making
lattes and cleaning tables with her
employees. She also lends a hand during
the week in her free time. “I used to
think I was really busy, and now I know
what really busy is,” she says. “But I
love being there. I guess that’s when
you know it’s the right thing because
you never feel bogged down by the
extra work.”
BeanZ & Co. helps the New England
Pasta Company cater community events
and recently expanded into catering and
stafng its own events. After the café’s
employees prepared and served appetiz-
ers at their rst party, one of its attend-
ees came in the next day and asked to
book their services.
Alix thought she and Morrison
would train their employees, help them
develop new skills, and they would
move on to other jobs. But, she says,
since not many want to leave, they are
working on ways to create more posi-
tions at the café.
Cate now works four days a week
as an ofce assistant at Mintz + Hoke,
a nearby advertising agency that also
wanted to support the advancement
of individuals with IDD. Alix hopes
that other employers who have no
experience with individuals with IDD
realize that there are job coaches and
other sources of support to help them
accommodate employees who have
special needs.
She says her motto is “one employer,
one employee at a time.”
“BeanZ can only employ so many
people, but you don’t need to start a
business to provide employment oppor-
tunities for people with disabilities,” she
says. “There are plenty of employers
out there already.” Q
PRO BONO
A Model
Approach
ABA groups are working
to promote and increase
medical-legal partnerships
BY AMANDA ROBERT
William Waddell Jr. was
getting out of his car
at Mid-Delta Health
Systems in Clarendon,
Arkansas, when a doctor walked up
to him and said he was needed inside
immediately.
A patient, who had complained of
frequent headaches, admitted after an
MRI scan that her husband had been
beating her, the doctor told Waddell.
She now had a brain bleed.
“This is the kind of thing that is
different from your typical pro bono
assignment,” says Waddell, a partner in
Friday, Eldredge & Clark’s Little Rock
ofce. “You are actually on the ground
with this person in a crisis or in the
midst of a legal issue that complicates
their mental or physical condition.”
Waddell drives to the community
health center once a month to provide
free legal services through its medi-
cal-legal partnership, or MLP. He assists
patients with wills, guardianship issues,
disability denials, landlord problems,
and in cases like this one, domes-
tic violence.
He joined the ABA Standing Com-
mittee on Pro Bono and Public Service
in August 2018 and hopes to help ener-
gize other attorneys who are interested
in helping doctors, case managers and
social workers address legal issues that
contribute to patients’ poor health.
The ABA was an early supporter of
MLPs. In 2007, the House of Delegates
passed a resolution encouraging mem-
bers of the legal profession to develop
MLPs with hospitals, community health
centers and social service organizations.
The Standing Committee on Pro
Bono and Public Service, Health Law
Section, AIDS Coordinating Committee
and Center on Children and the Law
created the Medical-Legal Partnerships
Pro Bono Support Project the following
year to connect more attorneys with
health care facilities.
At the time, then-ABA President
H. Thomas Wells Jr. said about 120
MLPs existed across the country. Now,
there are nearly 350, according to the
National Center for Medical-Legal Part-
nership, a project at George Washington
University’s Milken Institute School of
Public Health.
“The ABA has been such a key part-
ner for us in this endeavor,” says Ellen
Lawton, the co-director of the center.
BeanZ & Co.
sta
Continued on page 64
Photo by Iris Photography
ABA JOURNAL | FEBRUARY-MARCH 2020
62
To continue reading
Request your trial