Legal Council for Health Justice (formerly AIDS Legal Council of Chicago) uses the power of the law to secure dignity, opportunity, and well-being for people facing barriers due to illness or disability. We meet our clients where they are, as they are, tal como son, by providing efficient, personalized, and professional legal services. We listen to our clients concerns, assist them in developing a plan to address those concerns, and then put that plan in motion. We anticipate the evolving needs of our clients, studying the shifting forces that impact their lives, to ensure our service delivery meets their needs now and in the future. From our work with individual clients, we identify opportunities where education and system advocacy can be most effective to create meaningful, beneficial changes in our clients lives.

The Homeless Outreach Project focuses on providing strategic benefits advocacy to help individuals who are homeless, in large part due to years of profound trauma and undiagnosed and/or untreated mental health conditions to obtain awards of Social Security disability benefits (SSI and SSDI). These cash awards help individuals adhere to medical treatment plans and live stable and integrated lives in the community.

The AIDSLegalCouncil provides legal assistance in cases where an individuals HIV statusreal or perceivedis the cause of his or her legal difficulties. We assist clients with discrimination cases, insurance disputes, return-to-work questions, and confidentiality issues. We help those who come to us because they are too ill to work and need assistance applying for public benefits. We provide legal help to immigrants with HIV who want to normalize their status in the United States. And we help clients who need to write wills, powers of attorney, or guardianships to guarantee that their loved ones will be cared for in case of serious illness or death. We still hear of employers who believe that people with HIV are a danger in the workplace, health providers who test people for HIV without their permission, and nursing homes that turn clients away because they are living with HIV. We intervene for these HIV-affected clients, demanding what they are entitled to and restoring their dignity. We also hear of businesses reluctant to hire someone with HIV because of what they fear it will do to their health insurance costs.

Chicago Medical-Legal Partnership for Children nois who have a combination of social, medical, and educational needs; such as problems accessing health insurance, Medicaid, childrens SSI, Early Intervention, and special education. More than one-third of clients experience problems accessing special education or early intervention services and supports. Most of the families and individuals we serve would never access legal assistance unless they were referred to us by medical staff or because they can have face-to-face meetings with our staff who are co-located at partnership sites.