Developing A Pedagogy of Community Partnership Amidst COVID-19: Medical-Legal Partnership for Children in Hawai'i

Abstract

The Medical-Legal Partnership for Children in Hawaiʻi (MLPC) has partnered with low-income families in community health and public housing settings for over a decade to provide direct legal services and engage in systemic advocacy. The MLPC model of legal services is rooted in our pedagogy of community partnership that seeks to confront the legacies of racial inequality and to change systems of power that stigmatize and delegitimize community expertise. Although theories of community lawyering have been developing for many decades, community lawyering principles are commonly de-centered in many public interest legal spaces across the country, particularly in moments of crisis. And most public interest lawyering efforts do not make explicit commitments to racial justice and systems change. The purpose of this essay is to introduce our developing pedagogy of community partnership through the lens of MLPC Hawaiʻi’s work and model before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This essay highlights key tenets of MLPC’s pedagogy, MLPC’s work during COVID-19 and related crises, and challenges faced by MLPC’s lawyering model, including external criticisms and funding complexities.