Pictured from left to right: Steven Blatt, Sarah Reckess and Suzette Meléndez.
The College of Law is adding the Syracuse Medical Legal Partnership (SLMP) to its Office of Clinical Legal Education starting with the Spring 2025 semester. Professor Suzette Meléndez will be the co-director of the new clinic along with Dr. Steven Blatt of Upstate University Hospital and Professor Sarah Reckess L’09 of Upstate Medical University.
The SMLP is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the pediatric unit at SUNY Upstate Medical University and Syracuse University’s College of Law. SMLP provides legal advocacy to improve the overall health and well-being of vulnerable patient populations. SMLP also works to achieve systemic change through the multidisciplinary education of law students, medical students, residents and other professionals whose expertise is important to this goal. Doctors and lawyers will learn to work collaboratively to attain favorable outcomes for patients. Through this partnership, patients receive critical legal assistance while professionals learn about using community resources and employing cooperative strategies to benefit patients and clients in their practices.
“The main goal of the SMLP is to educate law students about the role lawyers can play in positively affecting the lives of children facing significant medical and sociological obstacles,” says Meléndez. “Likewise, we hope to educate medical and social work professionals in how to best work with legal representation to deliver the best patient outcomes.”
The SMLP combines a clinical offering and the Child Health Policy and Legal Practice course for students interested in developing legal skills and policy analysis in children’s health. Students will provide non-litigation legal services (intake, advice, research and referrals) for a busy pediatric clinic in Syracuse around legal issues that impact healthcare access and outcomes. This may include children’s access to education, safe housing, medical equipment, family court issues, government aid programs, transition-age youth and more. Special populations served by SMLP will be patients who have complex medical needs and patients who are aging out of pediatric health care and social services and need to preserve their legal rights.
“The SLMP is a unique approach to bridging the legal and sociological gap among a vulnerable population that is often faced with navigating the complicated systems during a crisis,” says Dean Terence Lau L’98. “Likewise, Syracuse Law students will gain critical skills such as interviewing clients and researching legal and policy solutions that are invaluable to their legal careers.”
Students can register for the clinic when they select classes for the Spring 2025 semester. Students enrolled in the SMLP must be co-enrolled in Child Health Policy and Legal Practice as the classroom component of this experiential course.
The College of Law now offers students the opportunity to participate in eight clinics: Bankruptcy, Betty & Michael D. Wohl Veterans Legal Clinic, Criminal Defense, Disability Rights, Housing, Sherman F. Levey ’57, L’59 Low Income Taxpayer Clinic, Syracuse Legal Medical Partnership and Transactional Law.
