Inside the “Super Hero Combo”: Interprofessional Tensions in Legal-Social Service Teams Providing Immigration Services

Objective: Social work and law interrelate in areas of legal aid and poverty law. Despite shared professional orientation to client advocacy, differences between the professions can undermine success of interdisciplinary collaboration. In the high-stakes field of immigration advocacy, zealous lawyers and social workers navigating criminalization of their clients face tensions in determining how to meet clients’ multifaceted needs. Method: This study uses exploratory qualitative design to investigate experiences of legal services staff (n = 27) in a sample of 12 social workers, 9 legal professionals, and 6 administrators. In five discipline-specific semi-structured focus groups, with the option for individual interview, participants described aspects of interdisciplinary work. Results: Findings highlighted importance of delineating social workers’ roles, both in organization’s incorporation of skills, and hierarchical perceptions of value in client-work and case development. Discipline-specific approaches to advocacy caused tension: each profession reported frustration with the others’ priorities, despite gratitude for their support. Communication difficulties and resource-poor environments exacerbate conflict. Conclusions: To better facilitate the powerfully creative interdisciplinary partnership, recommendations include institutional buy-in to further integrate social services into legal-service oriented organizations. This improves communication, knowledge about scope and capacity of fellow professionals, clarify role expectation, and build a sense of team rather than hierarchy.