A collaborative pursuit of justice
Nexus/Spring 2022
Fifty years ago, a group of idealistic students organized to provide desperately needed legal services to impoverished Torontonians. Their courageous work laid the foundation for what has grown to become Downtown Legal Services (DLS), the Faculty of Law’s leading public interest clinic for low-income clients. That original spirit of improving access to justice carries on with the students who step into DLS today. Each year approximately 150 law students work under the close supervision of the clinic’s accomplished lawyers, to provide services to nearly 1,000 individuals in the areas of housing, family, employment, criminal, refugee, and immigration law.
DLS draws on a theoretical framework which centres the notion that the law can have a uniquely devastating effect on low-income individuals and communities. Indeed, our clients are at the intersection of multiple and overlapping oppressions. They are particularly vulnerable to the confluence of poverty, race, gender, and mental illness. In response, DLS students provide an array of services, attempting to strike a difficult balance between serving individual needs while addressing underlying systemic causes that generate legal problems. Our students provide legal opinions, counsel clients, negotiate settlements, draft legal documents and advocate at hearings and trials. They also engage in public legal education, law reform projects, and pursue complex, systemic litigation.
At DLS, law students have a keen appreciation of the impact their work can have on people's lives. Our clinical legal education program focuses on critical and reflective practices that seek to consider, examine and challenge underlying social, political, cultural and economic patterns. The DLS experience allows students to consistently develop fresh insight into the social reality of law and legal institutions, to explore ethical issues and to acquire crucial professional skills in service of access to justice. As a supervising lawyer and now director, I am privileged to supervise bright, dedicated students. The teacher-student relationship energizes a collaborative pursuit of justice that is unique, effective, and vital.
I look forward to working closely with the Faculty of Law to maintain and enhance the clinical education program at DLS. In particular, I am eager to deepen relationships with marginalized communities and develop a unified clinic-wide outreach and service delivery model that is meaningfully informed by those most directly affected. I am also keen to improve the student experience by refreshing our pedagogy to align with recent developments in experiential education as well as collaborations with other Faculty of Law programs. And finally, anticipating a challenging fiscal climate, I am eager to explore additional sources of funding and to maintain and increase offerings at DLS.
I hope you enjoy reading this special anniversary issue of Nexus.
Prasanna Balasundaram
Director, Downtown Legal Services
