Health Law and Policy Clinic of the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation (WilmerHale Legal Services Center)

This year, the Harvard Law School Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs has recognized six students from the Class of 2020 for their outstanding clinical and pro bono work.

A team of attorneys from Harvard Law School's Center for Health Law & Policy Innovation testified at a hearing in support of legislation to establish a food and health pilot program in the state of Massachusetts.

Clinical Professor Robert Greenwald discusses PEPFAR’s impact at home in the United States, policy barriers to "getting to zero," and ways to address the epidemic head-on.

Dalia Deak ’19 is this year’s winner of the individual David Grossman Exemplary Clinical Award, given each year to the student who embodies the pro bono spirit of the late professor and exemplifies putting theory into practice through clinical work.

On April 5, Harvard Law School's Legal Services Center celebrated its 40th Anniversary of training more than 4,000 attorneys and law students and providing pro bono civil legal services to thousands of Greater Boston’s most vulnerable residents.

Harvard Law School’s newest building opened this fall at 1607 Massachusetts Avenue. Inside, the LEED Gold certified structure continues the school’s commitment to experiential learning, with space suited for clinics and collaborative learning as well as research programs.

More than 100 years after students started the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, there are now 40 clinics and Student Practice Organizations at HLS, focused on everything from cyberlaw to veterans’ rights.

The Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School (CHLPI) is undertaking a new advocacy campaign to enforce the health care rights guaranteed by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for people living with HIV and other chronic conditions.

There is now a cure for Hepatitis C. But in some states, Medicaid won’t pay for it until patients become seriously and irrevocably ill. Harvard Law’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation is trying to change that—through research, advocacy and litigation.

Harvard Law School’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation (CHLPI) filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Zubik v. Burwell, an Affordable Care Act (ACA) challenge set for argument on March 26. The brief asks the Court to affirm Court of Appeals’ decisions upholding the federal policy of maintaining access to free preventive care, including contraceptive services, in employer-sponsored health plans.

Harvard Law School Professor Jacob Gersen believes the ever-growing interest in food law is here to stay—and that it, like environmental law and administrative law before it, will eventually go from course-catalog novelty to staple.

A team of researchers from Harvard Law School’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, Brown University's Department of Medicine, Rhode Island’s Miriam Hospital, Treatment Action Group, and Kirby Institute of Australia, has released findings from a nationwide study of Medicaid policies for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV), which affects over 3 million Americans.

On May 19, the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation (CHLPI) launched a campaign to promote federal law and policy reforms for type 2 diabetes prevention and management as part of CHLPI’s broader, multi-phase Providing Access to Healthy Solutions (PATHS) initiative that first worked to strengthen local and state policy to address diet-related health conditions.

The Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation (CHLPI) recently released an insightful and action-oriented report on the landscape of type 2 diabetes in New Jersey. The report serves as a resource for diabetes advocates and offers detailed policy recommendations for the prevention and management of the disease.

For people living with HIV/AIDS and other chronic health conditions, finding the optimal healthcare plan for their needs is a lot easier, thanks to a new assessment tool created by Clinical Professor Robert Greenwald and others at the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law & Policy Innovation.

Daniel Nagin, a tireless advocate for low-income communities, will join the Harvard Law School faculty as a Clinical Professor of Law this summer. He will direct community-based lawyering at HLS’s WilmerHale Legal Services Center.

On Nov. 14, the Harvard Food Law Society, Environmental Law Society, and the Environmental Law Review hosted the Boston premiere of the PBS special “Heirloom Meals’ Thanksgiving.” The documentary, which aired on PBS stations around the country this week, celebrates how different cultures in America give the holidays their own special flavor.

On November 8, Emily Savner ‘13 of the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation testified at a regional listening session convened by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The session was convened to elicit comments from individuals and groups about the health services that should be included in the soon-to-be created Essential Health Benefits package mandated through health care reform. Once finalized and implemented by HHS, the Essential Health Benefits package will provide a federally mandated set of health services to millions of currently uninsured Americans through both Medicaid and newly-created subsidized private health insurance plans. 

Where others see entrenched problems, the HLS Mississippi Delta Project—an interdisciplinary effort in the HLS Clinical and Pro Bono Programs—sees opportunity for transformation. Since launching less than three years ago, the project has made strides in improving public health, promoting economic development and assisting children in the Delta.

From filing an emergency guardianship petition in probate court ensuring that the children of a dying mother are raised by the person she chooses, to appealing the denial of a disability claim in federal court for a critically ill client, the Harvard Law School Health Law and Policy Clinic prides itself on taking the toughest cases and working to shape policy to protect some of society’s most vulnerable people.

In April, Dorothée Alsentzer ‘05, senior clinical fellow at the Health Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School’s WilmerHale Legal Services Center, and Lecturer on law Robert Greenwald, founding director of the clinic, received the Positive Leadership Award from the National Association of People with AIDS, during AIDS Watch, a federal grassroots HIV/AIDS advocacy event held in Washington, D.C.

Robert Greenwald, Managing Director of the WilmerHale Legal Services Center at HLS, was appointed on Feb. 1 to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA). PACHA provides advice, information, and recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the President regarding programs and policies intended to promote effective care, treatment, and prevention of HIV disease, and to advance research on HIV disease and AIDS.

Far more is at risk in the health care reform debates than the well-being of the 47 million Americans who are currently uninsured, according to Jeff Crowley, the White House director of the Office of National AIDS Policy and senior adviser on Disability Policy, who spoke to an engaged crowd of about 60 students and others at HLS Wednesday night.

Staff and students from the WilmerHale Legal Services Center’s Health Law Clinic attended this year’s United States Conference on AIDS last month, where they introduced and described their new program to educate the public about the current state of health care law.