Sometimes the best medicine is a good lawyer.

And thanks to a new initiative, now there's an attorney as well as a doctor in the house at SouthEast Lancaster Health Services.

"There's an intersection between law and medicine," Jim Orgass, managing attorney at MidPenn Legal Services, said. "It's in treating those environmental factors associated with illness."

A first-of-its-kind program in Pennsylvania, the newly formed Medical Legal Partnership for Families aims to take a chunk out of the complex system that keeps the poor impoverished by backing up medical care with legal teeth.

For example, until now, a SouthEast physician could repeatedly tell the parent of a child with severe asthma that cockroaches must be eradicated from the household to manage the asthma. And the parent might repeatedly tell the physician that her landlord refuses to fumigate, and the conversation would stop there.

But now that parent's next stop after the doctor's appointment can be an attorney consultation right down the hall at SouthEast.

More than a year ago, Orgass read a law-journal article about a Boston program that put an attorney in a medical clinic serving low-income families to deal with legal issues that exacerbate medical problems. Orgass thought it made sense and began developing a similar program in Lancaster.

Finding a medical center partner was fairly easy.

"We've been struck in the past by the similarities between SouthEast Lancaster Health Services and MidPenn Legal Services," said Jim Kearney, MidPenn development director. "Our clients are the same — low-income folks. So the idea to put a lawyer in their shop was a very direct way to make a connection."

Even without funding, a pilot program showed promise. It established a direct referral system between SouthEast staff and attorneys.

So the next step was finding funding to put an attorney in-house at SouthEast so patients dealing with domestic violence, employment disputes and other legal issues could get help on the premises.

"A lot of people are still afraid to deal with legal problems, and they're afraid to go uptown (to MidPenn offices) to deal with legal problems," Kearney said. "But if they've made a connection with a nurse or doctor and we have someone right down the hall for them to talk to, it's more likely a connection will be made."

Orgass was concerned about funding the program — similar programs were operating only in large metro areas.

"If you look at a map of where these medical-legal partnerships exist, they're in New York and California," Orgass said. "We thought funding would be a hurdle because we're not in a large community. But everyone we talked to understood the idea and the need. It took about a year to get the funding."

Orgass approached several potential funding sources, including The Lancaster County Community Foundation and Lancaster city via Mayor Rick Gray, who started the city's first legal services center. Each agreed to fund a third of the program for the first two years.

The balance came from The Lancaster Osteopathic Foundation, United Way of Lancaster, St. Joseph's Health Ministries, the Feree Foundation, RodaNast Foundation and Lancaster General.

Finding the right attorney was a lot easier than finding funding. Before attorney Catherine Schultz took a job at MidPenn just over three years ago, she worked in legal services in Boston, where the first medical-legal partnership was established in 1993.

"I was acquainted with the lawyer who ran that, so when I learned this was in the making here, I was really excited because I was already familiar with the concept," Schultz said.

For the most part, Schultz's job won't change much, except she'll be working out of SouthEast's South Duke Street clinic. She'll still be dealing with legal issues associated with low-income clients, but now they will be directly linked to patients' well-being — anything from accessing food stamps to housing issues, such as lead paint or mold. Her caseload won't include immigration or personal injury issues.

She also will train SouthEast staff to recognize when a patient's situation requires legal intervention.

Just a week into seeing clients at SouthEast, Schultz is optimistic about the possibilities.

"I'm really excited about it," Schultz said. "So far, I've just been seeing clients briefly, but it's exciting, stimulating. Once we really get everything up and running, this will be a great service to the community."

E-mail: slindt@lnpnews.com