One of the first things students learn in Professor Dayna Matthew鈥檚 Poverty, Health, and the Law class is that adding a lawyer to a patient鈥檚 treatment team to address his or her unmet legal needs can dramatically improve the patient鈥檚 overall health. Now, third-year law students in Matthew鈥檚 class are applying that principle to an entire community.
Sarah Goff (鈥�17), Sara Menton (鈥�17), Mariah Johnston (鈥�17), Sarah Pisk (鈥�17), and Elizabeth Powers (鈥�17) teamed up with attorneys from Earthjustice and the Sierra Club to advocate for residents of Denver鈥檚 Globeville and Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods who will be affected by .听
After the highway project received a green light by the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) in the form of a Record of Decision, the students co-authored a 30-page memo stating that the environmental and health impacts of residents and the surrounding area were not sufficiently considered. They drew on criteria established in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to support their argument.
"We are working to improve the health of an entire community through legal action.鈥濃�擡lizabeth Powers ('17)
For students whose work up until that point had focused primarily on health law, this experience pushed them out of their comfort zones as they dug deeper into the environmental implications of such a project. While their arguments and research originated with the adverse health effects of residents living near the proposed highway (including asthma, heart disease, and more), they also became deeply familiar with NEPA to support their environmental law claims.
鈥淚 am so proud of the way these students combined what they鈥檝e learned in their clinics and coursework to tirelessly advocate for the residents of Globeville and聽Elyria-Swansea,鈥� said Matthew, who directs the Health Law and Policy program and the Colorado Health Equity Project at Colorado Law.听鈥淭hey are all shining examples of applying skills as a lawyer to serve the public good.鈥�
The students鈥� memo will be used by Earthjustice and the Sierra Club to push back against the record of decision in court.
鈥淭he idea of using our legal knowledge to help the underserved is not a new one, but working on this case was unique in that we were able to combine our skills and learn about a different area of the law,鈥� said Powers, who earned a Certificate in Health Law and Policy along with her JD. 鈥淲hile it took us a while to understand the intricacies of NEPA, we were able to combine our talents and skills that we鈥檝e learned in law school while gaining new knowledge.鈥�
鈥淭his was an amazing opportunity to work directly with some of the top lawyers in the field,鈥� Goff said. 鈥淕etting their feedback on our work and then having a dialogue about the strengths and weaknesses in the various arguments was really helpful both academically and in the sense that we knew our work had the potential to make a real difference for the communities.鈥�
Taking her work a step further, Powers volunteered to address another need in the community: confusion and concern among health care providers of undocumented immigrants. As a result of President Trump鈥檚 immigration order and policy, there is concern among health care providers that people will be more reluctant to seek medical help when they need to, for fear of their immigration status being discovered, Powers said.
She delivered a presentation to the physicians and staff at , a low-cost primary and preventative health care provider located in the neighborhood that serves predominantly uninsured, underinsured, and low-income Latino families. Her presentation addressed concerns and questions around whether or not federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents can question patients鈥� immigration status.
鈥淔or me, talking to the client and receiving feedback on how our work is going to have a positive impact on a group of people鈥檚 lives makes it all worth it,鈥� Powers said. 鈥淲e are working to improve the health of an entire community through legal action.鈥�
PICTURED (L-R): Sarah Goff, Sara Menton, Dayna Bowen Matthew, and Elizabeth Powers