Across the United States, millions of farmworkers engage in difficult and skilled labor to put food on our tables.1 However, despite the essential labor they provide, they are not treated that way. Many farmworkers have incomes below the federal poverty level and struggle with housing insecurity, food insecurity, and lack of access to other critical resources and supports that influence health.2 These factors, also known as social determinants of health (SDOH), "are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks."3 Farmworkers are particularly impacted by the SDOH because of structural and systemic exclusion.4 Community-based farmworker clinics are essential resources for farmworkers to address health needs and access services. However, in order address and begin to rectify the environmental factors that are at the root of health and wellness issues, often legal intervention can be the missing piece. Legal service providers can be inaccessible to farmworkers. Strategic and embedded collaboration between medical and legal advocates in the form of a Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) can be an invaluable tool for addressing SDOH and supporting farmworker families. MLPs are structural and integrated interventions, embedding lawyers into a healthcare setting to collaborate with the care team to address structural problems at the root of health inequities.5 Embedded lawyers work with the health care team to address individual patient's immediate social needs as well as to identify patterns and develop upstream strategies to address SDOH.6 MLPs can be an important tool to "improve outcomes for systemically and structurally excluded populations."7 In this session, participants will learn about a Farmworker MLP started two years ago by Central West Justice Center's Seasonal and Migrant Farmworker Unit in collaboration with "La Cliniquita" a farmworker clinic at the Baystate Brightwood Health Center in Springfield Massachusetts. This MLP is based on guidance from patients, community health workers, the workers center, and other community organizations. The partnership embeds a lawyer into the healthcare team to help patients with health harming legal needs, lead trainings for patients and providers, and advocate for policy change to eliminate systemic inequities at the state level. In this session we will share the model we have developed and explore the challenges, successes, and takeaways from our experience. Participants will engage in conversations about how embedding legal services within community-based farmworker medical clinics can help eliminate barriers for farmworkers and will leave with a model and key takeaways to help them think about how an MLP or similar partnership could be implemented in their own states and communities.

 Citations: 1) See Daniel Costa, How many farmworkers are employed in the United States, ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE BLOG, (October 3, 2023), https://www.epi.org/blog/how-many-farmworkers-are-employed-in-the-united-states/. 2) See generally Sarah Goldman, et al., Essential and in Crisis: A Review of the Public Health Threats Facing Farmworkers in the U.S., JOHN HOPKINS CENTER FOR A LIVABLE FUTURE, (May 2021), https://clf.jhsph.edu/sites/default/files/2021-05/essential-and-in-_crisis-a-review-of-the-public-health-threats-facing-farmworkers-in-the-us.pdf. 3) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, OFFICE OF DISEASE PREVENTION AND HEALTH PROMOTION, Healthy People 2030: Social Determinants of Health, https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-determinants-health, (last accessed May 29, 2024). 4) Goldman, supra note 2. 5) See generally NATIONAL CENTER FOR MEDICAL LEGAL PARTNERSHIPS, https://medical-legalpartnership.org/, (last accessed May 29, 2024). 6) Kate Marple, et al., Health Center MLP planning, implementation and practice guide: Bringing Lawyers onto the health center care team to promote patient & community health, NATIONAL CENTER FOR MEDICAL LEGAL PARTNERSHIPS (October 2020), at 5-7, https://medical-legalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Health-Center-MLP-Toolkit-FINAL.pdf. 7) NATIONAL CENTER FOR MEDICAL LEGAL PARTNERSHIPS and Omar Martinez, Webinar Presentation, Best Practices for Screening and Data Collection for MLP's Serving Immigrant Populations: Advancing the Science of MLPs Serving Diverse Immigrant Populations, https://medical-legalpartnersh... (last accessed May 29, 2024).

• describe what a medical legal partnership (MLP) is and outline a model that an MLP can follow.
• describe the importance of taking the lead from patients, the care team, and community members when developing a partnership like an MLP, and/or when conducting more effective outreach.
• explain the social determinants of health that farmworkers face and reflect on the health harming needs that farmworkers in their own states and communities experience.
• design and implement an embedded community partnership, like an MLP, or improve upon one that is already in place based on the strategies shared among advocates during the session.

This is a follow-up to the November 2023 Zoom training on the RICO Act in Farmworker Cases. The first part of the workshop will be a brief review of the RICO basics we discussed in the 2023 training and more recent developments in the law (people who did not attend the 2023 training will get enough information during the review to participate meaningfully in this workshop). Most of the workshop will be practical: using a "ripped from the headlines" H-2A hypothetical, we will break up into small groups and develop an abbreviated fill-in-the-blank complaint incorporating best practices for (1) pleading RICO enterprises; (2) pleading a pattern of racketeering activity/continuity; (3) addressing potential causation issues; (4) addressing extraterritoriality and in pari delicto concerns: (5) and incorporating charts. Groups will then present their respective "complaints" to the participants. For each group complaint, we collectively will brainstorm about what works (and may not work). The goal is to come out of this workshop knowing enough concrete RICO skills (and related puns) to be dangerous. !Que RICO!

• understand the basics of civil RICO claims and the potential benefits and risks of including RICO claims in farmworker litigation.
• understand and correctly plead RICO enterprises and a pattern of racketeering activity, including continuity.
• avoid the pitfalls of causation, extraterritoriality, and in pari delicto.
• understand how to organize complex RICO allegations in a complaint (including use of charts) so they make sense and do not terrify the judge.

The workshop will go over current laws and procedural hurdles that arise when representing foreign clients in US litigation. Through a series of hypotheticals, we will highlight some common obstacles and attempt to arrive at practical solutions, drawing from the experience of our diverse group of panelists. The 8th (2024) edition of Justice in Motion's Challenges in Transnational Litigation practice manual will be available for workshop participants. Discussion topics may include: - Special considerations in outreach and client relationship building with farmworkers who are foreign nationals - Common logistical issues to be aware of and address at the onset of litigation - How to respond to opposing counsel's attempts to use plaintiff's whereabouts to gain a tactical advantage - Discovery issues, including protective order motions, remote deposition practice pointers, and document authentication, especially with respect to pandemic-era federal court protocols and best practices to continue - Options for, and practicability of, bringing clients back to the US for in-person participation in litigation - Managing cases on a limited budget and how to effectively harness cross-border resources.

• Upon completion, participant will be able to tackle issues that come up in transnational cases, including discovery issues, remote procedures, bringing clients back to the US, etc.
• Upon completion, participant will be able to respond to opposing counsel's attempts to use plaintiff whereabouts to gain tactical advantage.
• Upon completion, participate will understand availability of cross-border resources, including how to budget and when to set things up.
• Upon completion, participant will be more confident in representing and bringing litigation on behalf of clients who live outside of the US.

Providing high quality direct legal services in a fast-paced environment can be challenging. This presentation aims to identify challenges specific to legal service providers working with immigrant and/or low-wage workers. We will discuss the following challenges and share ethical approaches to: managing expectations, meaningful language access, and respectful client storytelling. The second half of this training will focus on providing ethical advocacy in a way that is sustainable for the advocates themselves. We will explore what it means to support staff with lived experience, define moral injury, discuss what meaningful collaboration with colleagues looks like, and create intentional, safe spaces for staff to regularly discuss emotionally challenging cases.

• List specific strategies for managing expectations and incorporating language access in communications with prospective and current clients.
• Identify why staff with lived experience are an important part of ethical representation and learn about ways to support colleagues with lived experience.
• List strategies to share client stories ethically and respectfully.
• Define moral injury and consider its impact on direct service providers.

Citing labor shortages and costs associated with H-2A visas, pork producers, dairies, and other actors in the animal agriculture industry are increasingly turning to TN and J-1 visas to fill a wide range of vacancies in their production. While these programs are ostensibly limited to certain categories of professional work and cultural exchange, respectively, advocates across the country are hearing from TN and J-1 workers who are required to perform manual labor outside of the professional role promised and with no cultural exchange value. In contrast to the H-2A program, there is little government oversight of J-1 and TN programs--and the animal agriculture industry is actively lobbying for what little oversight exists to be further degraded. This panel will provide participants with an overview of this emerging trend and tools to analyze its impact in their communities, such as suggested intake questions for TN and J-1 workers in animal agriculture. It will also discuss the legal issues that arise when workers are recruited for J-1 and TN visa qualifying work but assigned tasks traditionally carried out by H-2A and H-2B workers, including labor trafficking, fraud/RICO claims, AEWR and prevailing wage violations, OSH Act and Food Safety Modernization Act violations, and discrimination. Participants will be invited to share their observations about the use and misuse of TN and J-1 visas in animal agriculture in their own communities, and to exchange best practices for responding to the abuses it can present.

• Upon completion, participants will have an understanding of emerging trends related to the use of TN and J-1 visas in animal agriculture and the legal issues posed by this trend.
• Upon completion, participants will be equipped to monitor the use of TN and J-1 visas in animal agriculture in their own communities.
• Upon completion, participants will have developed tools to effectively evaluate the legal claims of TN and J-1 workers in animal agriculture.

We propose presenting findings from the "Precarious Protection" report at the National Farmworker Law Conference. This session will address the severe health risks farmworkers face from pesticide exposure and the critical gaps in the enforcement of the Worker Protection Standard (WPS). We will discuss the report's recommendations for enhancing regulatory compliance, improving oversight, and supporting farmworker health and safety. Our goal is to stimulate policy reform discussions and collaborative efforts to better protect farmworkers from pesticide-related hazards on a federal and state level.

• Upon completion, participants will be able to develop action plans for implementing recommendations from the "Precarious Protection" report within their respective organizations or communities to support farmworker health and safety.
• Upon completion, participants will be able to describe the severe health risks farmworkers face from pesticide exposure as outlined in the "Precarious Protection" report.
• Upon completion, participants will be able to define key terms and concepts related to regulatory compliance and enforcement mechanisms discussed in the "Precarious Protection" report.
• Upon completion, participants will be able to evaluate the effectiveness of existing policies and initiatives aimed at protecting farmworkers from pesticide-related hazards, utilizing insights gained from the "Precarious Protection" report.

2024 promises to bring important changes in the regulatory framework affecting H-2A workers. In April 2024, the Department of Labor finalized the Farmworker Protection Rule, a sweeping effort to increase worker protections and strengthen DOL's enforcement capacity in the H-2A program. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has proposed new rules for both the H-2A and H-2B programs which would offer workers greater flexibility and improve oversight of H-2 employers. While not addressing many structural flaws of our current temporary labor visa system, these developments represent an important advancement of workers rights in the H-2A program. This session will provide advocates with an overview of the relevant regulatory changes, their status as of the date of the conference, and their outlook in light of the next presidential administration. After developing that shared foundation among attendees, the workshop will shift to a discussion-based session where advocates will be invited to share what they are observing and hearing from workers regarding implementation of the new protections, and share strategies for ensuring the rules' effective implementation.

• At the end of this session, participants will have a firm grasp of the new regulatory changes affecting H-2A workers and their current status.
• At the end of this session, participants will be equipped to monitor the implementation of the new rules affecting H-2A workers in their own communities.
• At the end of this session, participants will have developed tools to ensure the enforcement of the new rules affecting H-2A workers.

Potential topics within could include 2021 stimulus payments and Child Tax Credit (still can be claimed until 4/15/2025), using tax information in outreach as an method to build rapport/trust with farmworkers; general overview of tax obligations and benefits for farmworkers.

• Help advocates use tax at outreach to talk to farmworkers and identify tax related problems and solutions