The little girl’s cough just keeps hanging on, and she’s having a hard time breathing. 

Her worried father brings her to the Community-University Health Care Center (CUHCC), where the doctor writes a prescription and refers the family to the Deinard Legal Clinic, CUHCC’s on-site medical-legal partnership with Stinson LLP, whose attorneys provide pro bono legal services to CUHCC patients. 

The doctor suspects that the girl’s breathing difficulties are the result of black mold in their rented apartment. The Stinson legal team helps the father act to hold the landlord accountable for keeping the family safe and healthy in their home. 

At CUHCC, located in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis, patients are offered more than medical and dental care. The clinic has a full suite of services to address social determinants of health, the nonmedical factors that contribute to a person’s overall health and well-being. These include not only legal services but language interpretation, patient advocacy, care coordination, health education, and dietitian and pharmacy services. It serves about 12,000 patients annually and is a program of the University of Minnesota Office of Academic Clinical Affairs. 

“CUHCC is a really special place,” says Tim Sanders Szabo, pro bono attorney at Stinson and director of CUHCC’s Deinard Legal Clinic. “Everyone is working to meet people where they are.”

Since the partnership began in 1993, Stinson lawyers have donated more than 140,000 pro bono hours to CUHCC patients, supporting almost 4,000 clients. 

This year, the vast majority of their legal cases, according to Sanders Szabo, have involved detention support for immigrants. Through the clinic, Stinson attorneys launched a rapid response effort so CUHCC patients could have immediate legal support if they or their families were detained during Operation Metro Surge. CUHCC has since implemented a trauma-informed healthcare model to help patients process the mental and physical toll of arrest, detention and family separation. 

For years, the Deinard Legal Clinic has operated out of a trailer on CUHCC property. Like the rest of CUHCC, it has significantly outgrown its space. 

The University of Minnesota recently broke ground on a renovation and expansion that will double the size of CUHCC, which also serves as a rich training ground for about 200 learners in the health professions each year, by late 2027. The new space will include a larger, dedicated legal office. 

Stinson, Otto Bremer Trust and others have made significant gifts toward the University’s $20 million fundraising goal for the building, but additional support is still needed.