Law for the people: JD artists create mural for U of T’s Downtown Legal Services

“Law for the People,” a new mural located within the University of Toronto’s Downtown Legal Services, conveys a human-centred approach to law.

Benjamin Merrell, a spring graduate of the juris doctor (JD) program, is the collage artist behind the project.

“When I was planning the concept for it, I wanted it to be something that reflected the space and my experience as a caseworker [at the clinic],” he says.

Downtown Legal Services, or DLS, is a community legal clinic and clinical education program operated by the Henry N.R. Jackman Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. The clinic was first founded by the faculty’s students over 50 years ago.

Staffed by a team of supervising lawyers and over 100 student caseworkers, DLS provides free legal help to students and low-income members of the community in areas of law that include housing, family, employment, criminal, refugee and immigration. In spring of 2024, DLS launched a new division to offer additional legal services around disability, health and income security. The clinic assists nearly 2,000 clients, annually.

“[At the time I applied to be a student caseworker,] I just wanted a summer job, preferably doing some legal work,” says Merrell, currently an articling student at Bennet Jones in his hometown of Calgary. “Little did I know it was going to be a transformative experience and would lead to this artistic project as well.”

Merrell’s collage work focuses on buildings and urban space. He proposed the piece to the clinic’s director, lawyer Prasanna Balasundaram. Merrell worked on it voluntarily during his last year of studies.  

“It was an interesting process and a good learning experience for me as an artist,” says Merrell. “I've done lots of small-scale stuff and big canvases, but never anything this size. It was a new challenge to take something very small and translate it large enough to fit a wall.”

Merrell says he chose to incorporate many of Toronto’s familiar legal landmarks that are also of architectural significance. “Buildings are a good reflection of the world [that’s fixed]. [Buildings do] change over time, but slowly,” he says. “The law is like a fixed, solid thing. It feels very unchanging to the people working within the system."

Sourced from Toronto, Observed, and printed to scale by Colour Systems Inc., Merrell says the Osgoode Hall Building at University Avenue and Queen Street was important to include, as the seat of the Law Society of Ontario.

“City Hall is also a centre of lawmaking. There’s the old City Hall building and the new City Hall building, because I wanted to evoke the change that’s occurred in the law.”

The TD Tower on Bay Street also features prominently, adding another dimension, he says. “Especially in Toronto, Bay Street looms very large and has an important role to play.”

A second phase of the mural includes the addition of human figures by JD students Jimin Lee and Allie Fong.

“The building [images] are black and white; solid, inflexible, like black letter law,” says Merrell. “Then we have the people who are in vibrant colour. They’re living in the city, which is how we, as people, are navigating the law as well. When you’re looking at the piece, the thing that will draw your eye [is] the people. You’ll look past the law to focus on them. The law revolves around people. That’s who it exists to serve.”

“Law for the People” speaks to the modus operandi of DLS and its focus on serving clients, Merrell adds. “You work so closely with DLS clients. I had clients who were struggling with mental illness, and it really forced me to adapt my approach, think about their needs, try to put myself in their shoes, and think of creative solutions.”

Merrell says his experience as a student caseworker was also his first opportunity to embody the work of a lawyer and gave him invaluable exposure into how the legal system works, including its flaws.

“People are at the core of what we’re doing as lawyers, and understanding their perspective is really important," he says.