Mount Sinai Medical Legal Partnership Names Executive Director
Legal Clinics Provide COVID-19-related Aid to Mount Sinai Patients
The Mount Sinai Medical Legal Partnership (MSMLP) has appointed Allison Charney as its Executive Director. Ms. Charney was a founding member of the MSMLP and has been Co-Chair of the Board of Directors since its inception in 2014.
Ms. Charney joins MSMLP in this role after working for 13 years as a partner in two top-tier law firms.
“Allison has stepped up right away working with MSMLP’s providers and pro bono attorneys to ensure that our patients in their greatest time of need still had access to legal services,” said Barbara Berger Opotowsky, MSMLP President.
Ms. Charney’s new role comes as the MSMLP has helped patients with COVID-19-related needs in obtaining unemployment benefits, visa extensions, public benefits, end-of-life planning, and custody of children. With the support of a centralized intake platform arranged for by MSMLP’s partner, LegalHealth, MSMLP has continued to provide free and confidential legal services for low-income Mount Sinai patients throughout the COVID-19 crisis.
“MSMLP has helped better serve our patients’ legal needs, which we know can lead to healthier outcomes,” said Beth Essig, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Mount Sinai Health System, and MSMLP Founder and Advisory Board Member.
As patients return to Mount Sinai for routine care, MSMLP will continue its mission of providing free legal services ranging from special education advocacy for young patients to end-of-life planning at seven legal clinics throughout the Mount Sinai Health System.
MSMLP was founded to provide the most vulnerable of Mount Sinai’s patients with free legal services to prevent and remedy the social and environmental conditions that can negatively affect a patient’s overall well-being. MSMLP brings together lawyers and health care teams, implementing integrated approaches to holistically caring for Mount Sinai’s patients by giving patients legal help in areas including housing, education, benefits, family law issues, wills, and immigration.
“Allison brings to MSMLP extraordinary legal qualifications, and her commitment to access to legal services for all is evidenced by her many years of pro bono service. Allison first worked to create MSMLP; now as our new Executive Director, she will take MSMLP to the next level to improve the lives of Mount Sinai’s neediest patients,” said Bettina Plevan, partner at Proskauer Rose LLP, Chair of the MSMLP Board of Directors and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Mount Sinai Health System.
About the Mount Sinai Medical Legal Partnership
Mount Sinai Medical Legal Partnership, an independent, non-profit organization, provides Mount Sinai’s vulnerable patients with free legal service to prevent and remedy the social and environmental conditions that are rooted in legal issues, such as housing, education, personal safety, and access to health care. Bringing together lawyers and healthcare teams, the MSMLP implements an integrated approach to caring for Mount Sinai’s patients in its seven legal clinics and targeted programs throughout the Mount Sinai Health System. By addressing the legal issues and other non-medical determinants of illness, the MSMLP is improving the overall health of our patients and community. For more information, visit http://www.msmslp.org
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, over 400 outpatient practices, nearly 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time — discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.
Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,300 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. We are consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals, receiving high "Honor Roll" status, and are highly ranked: No. 1 in Geriatrics and top 20 in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Neurology/Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Pulmonology/Lung Surgery, Rehabilitation, and Urology. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 12 in Ophthalmology. U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Children’s Hospitals” ranks Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital among the country’s best in several pediatric specialties.
For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.