Kate Mitchell is Clinical Professor of Law, Director of the Health Justice Project, a medical legal partnership clinic at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, and Director of the Rodin Center for Social Justice. She also holds a joint appointment in the Family Medicine Department at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine. Kate’s primary research interests relate to the intersection of poverty, health, and advocacy; interdisciplinary advocacy; racism and health equity; and access to healthcare and education. Kate joined Loyola in 2017 after more than 16 years practicing and teaching in the areas of poverty law, children’s rights and health law. She has extensive experience representing children and families in access to health care and public benefits, special education, housing, immigration, family law, and other general civil law matters. She has also been involved in local, state, and national policy work in the areas of access to healthcare, education, and juvenile justice. Before joining Loyola’s faculty, Kate was a clinical teaching fellow with the Pediatric Advocacy Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School. She also worked as the Legal Director of the Toledo Medical Legal Partnership for Children, Policy Director at the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, and as a staff attorney at Legal Aid Chicago. Professor Mitchell has presented at local, state, and national conferences on interprofessional education and interdisciplinary advocacy, healthy equity, upstream lawyering, special education, juvenile competency standards, and Medicaid regulations impacting child access to healthcare. Kate received her BA in Sociology, from Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin and her JD, from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law in Chicago. Kate has been admitted to practice law in Illinois, Louisiana, Ohio, and Michigan.
Presentation (PDF format): Upstream Lawyering: A Framework for Poverty Law