More Clinics Offering Legal Advice to Patients in Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Medical and legal partnerships serving low-income people are becoming more commonplace in Minnesota, as some health care clinics are adding on-site attorneys to their teams of doctors and nurses to provide free legal advice.

Reports that the state's first legal-medical partnership was established more than two decades ago at Community University Health Care Center in Minneapolis. Hennepin County Medical Center's Whittier Clinic formed a partnership in 2013, and a third partnership began this spring at a clinic at St. Cloud.

Hamline University's law school also is working to set up a similar relationship with a St. Paul clinic.

Attorney Carrie Graf says such arrangements are gaining traction because health care reform has prompted hospitals and clinics to examine patients more closely.