By Annie Hagstrom
Michigan Law
Megan Hess, a third-year law student, is among 34 graduating law students and judicial clerks nationwide chosen to receive a 2026 Skadden Fellowship. She is the 42nd Michigan Law graduate to receive the fellowship.
During the two-year fellowship, Hess will be working at the Children’s Law Center (CLC) in Washington, DC, expanding their medical-legal partnership, Healthy Together, to represent families in public benefits matters. In doing so, she will identify systemic patterns to drive broader advocacy.
Piloted in 2002, Healthy Together was the first partnership of its kind in DC and the third nationwide. It has grown to include clinics across the city with three of DC’s largest health providers: Unity Health Care, Mary’s Center, and Children’s National Hospital.
“Medical-legal partnerships embed lawyers in health care settings to address health-harming issues that perhaps need legal solutions as opposed to medical ones,” said Hess. “My project addresses threats to families’ economic stability by rooting public benefits advocacy directly within pediatric clinics where families seek care, advancing their children’s long-term health.”
Her work will build on a previous collaboration between the CLC and Children’s National Hospital that provided data to help define the scope of the problem. They found that Medicaid covers 41 percent of children and nearly half of all births in the District of Columbia; children live in 54 percent of households receiving aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; and thousands of DC families caring for children with disabilities rely on Supplemental Security Income to offset high out-of-pocket costs and limited earning capacity.
This means public benefits are a lifeline for many households, Hess said.
—————
Steered toward advocacy
Hess’s commitment to advocacy grew from seeing how medical and social support systems fundamentally impact family well-being, leading her to become an emergency medical technician (EMT) during college.
“I stabilized patients in crisis and advocated for them to receive the best care possible once they reached the emergency department,” said Hess. “I took pride in my role, but I also saw the limits of what my fellow providers and I could accomplish.”
Hess began to notice just how many health problems are driven by non-medical factors, and that medicine alone is an imperfect tool when non-medical barriers to better health outcomes exist. When the basic needs of patients, like housing, food, and public benefits, went unmet, medical crises became more likely.
“People often reached us when they were in crisis or on the brink of it,” she said. “I realized preventative, collaborative solutions rooted in identifying challenges before they become emergencies could be powerful in stabilizing families and improving their well-being. This was how I wanted to help improve health outcomes—not by intervening only after crises, nor by treating their consequences as a health care provider, but by working upstream to surface and address social and economic barriers to families’ health before they become emergencies.”
It was then that Hess set her sights on law school.
—————
Integrating disciplines
When Hess first entered Michigan Law, she was hesitant to share her medical background, but she credits Jason Cowin, an attorney-counselor in the Office of Career Planning, and Emily Bretz, ‘11, the Law School’s public interest director, for encouraging her to lean into it.
“I didn’t want to seem like I wasn’t fully committed to law, but Jason and Emily helped me understand that my background expands my perspective and can be used as a tool,” she said. “That was an instrumental shift for me not just in my academic experience, but in leading to the development of my fellowship project.”
To leverage her diverse interests into her studies, Hess participated in Michigan Law’s Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic and on pro bono cases for the Family Law Project. Her position as senior executive editor on the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law as well as her experience as an intern for the ACLU Women’s Rights Project allowed her to see that public benefits advocacy and gender justice are more closely linked than she previously thought:
Public benefits challenges uniquely and disproportionately affect women, especially single mothers, who are usually the primary caregiver and breadwinner for their family.
“Michigan Law really encourages not just learning the doctrine but also understanding how it applies to real people,” she said. “It’s such an inspiring space to be in, especially when you’re working with clients.
“Because our legal system doesn’t always work equally and equitably, it can be traumatizing for a lot of people. Law school affirmed that the challenges I saw as an EMT could be assisted by the right legal tools, and that has made me more confident in the interdisciplinary nature of my project and the type of lawyer I want to be.”
Michigan Law
Megan Hess, a third-year law student, is among 34 graduating law students and judicial clerks nationwide chosen to receive a 2026 Skadden Fellowship. She is the 42nd Michigan Law graduate to receive the fellowship.
During the two-year fellowship, Hess will be working at the Children’s Law Center (CLC) in Washington, DC, expanding their medical-legal partnership, Healthy Together, to represent families in public benefits matters. In doing so, she will identify systemic patterns to drive broader advocacy.
Piloted in 2002, Healthy Together was the first partnership of its kind in DC and the third nationwide. It has grown to include clinics across the city with three of DC’s largest health providers: Unity Health Care, Mary’s Center, and Children’s National Hospital.
“Medical-legal partnerships embed lawyers in health care settings to address health-harming issues that perhaps need legal solutions as opposed to medical ones,” said Hess. “My project addresses threats to families’ economic stability by rooting public benefits advocacy directly within pediatric clinics where families seek care, advancing their children’s long-term health.”
Her work will build on a previous collaboration between the CLC and Children’s National Hospital that provided data to help define the scope of the problem. They found that Medicaid covers 41 percent of children and nearly half of all births in the District of Columbia; children live in 54 percent of households receiving aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; and thousands of DC families caring for children with disabilities rely on Supplemental Security Income to offset high out-of-pocket costs and limited earning capacity.
This means public benefits are a lifeline for many households, Hess said.
—————
Steered toward advocacy
Hess’s commitment to advocacy grew from seeing how medical and social support systems fundamentally impact family well-being, leading her to become an emergency medical technician (EMT) during college.
“I stabilized patients in crisis and advocated for them to receive the best care possible once they reached the emergency department,” said Hess. “I took pride in my role, but I also saw the limits of what my fellow providers and I could accomplish.”
Hess began to notice just how many health problems are driven by non-medical factors, and that medicine alone is an imperfect tool when non-medical barriers to better health outcomes exist. When the basic needs of patients, like housing, food, and public benefits, went unmet, medical crises became more likely.
“People often reached us when they were in crisis or on the brink of it,” she said. “I realized preventative, collaborative solutions rooted in identifying challenges before they become emergencies could be powerful in stabilizing families and improving their well-being. This was how I wanted to help improve health outcomes—not by intervening only after crises, nor by treating their consequences as a health care provider, but by working upstream to surface and address social and economic barriers to families’ health before they become emergencies.”
It was then that Hess set her sights on law school.
—————
Integrating disciplines
When Hess first entered Michigan Law, she was hesitant to share her medical background, but she credits Jason Cowin, an attorney-counselor in the Office of Career Planning, and Emily Bretz, ‘11, the Law School’s public interest director, for encouraging her to lean into it.
“I didn’t want to seem like I wasn’t fully committed to law, but Jason and Emily helped me understand that my background expands my perspective and can be used as a tool,” she said. “That was an instrumental shift for me not just in my academic experience, but in leading to the development of my fellowship project.”
To leverage her diverse interests into her studies, Hess participated in Michigan Law’s Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic and on pro bono cases for the Family Law Project. Her position as senior executive editor on the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law as well as her experience as an intern for the ACLU Women’s Rights Project allowed her to see that public benefits advocacy and gender justice are more closely linked than she previously thought:
Public benefits challenges uniquely and disproportionately affect women, especially single mothers, who are usually the primary caregiver and breadwinner for their family.
“Michigan Law really encourages not just learning the doctrine but also understanding how it applies to real people,” she said. “It’s such an inspiring space to be in, especially when you’re working with clients.
“Because our legal system doesn’t always work equally and equitably, it can be traumatizing for a lot of people. Law school affirmed that the challenges I saw as an EMT could be assisted by the right legal tools, and that has made me more confident in the interdisciplinary nature of my project and the type of lawyer I want to be.”
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