Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan gives over space in its offices in downtown Los Angeles to the creation of art.

Could be our favourite law firm story of the year..

The NY Times reports

Much of what is made in law offices are tedious instruments of commerce: contracts, loan agreements, multipage memorandums.

But this year, the law firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has given over space in its offices overlooking the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles to the creation of art.

On the sixth floor, works in progress by Molly Segal, 38, a midcareer artist whose work focuses on themes like decay and regeneration, are stacked three or four deep against the wall.

“Never in my life did I expect to have a corner office,” Segal said.

Credit…Michelle Groskopf for The New York Times

 

A floor below, Edgar Ramirez, 32, a painter who focuses on themes like commerce and labor, creates stencils on cardboard canvases, using text from real estate street signs he finds on his drive in from the suburbs.

“Having the space gives me the freedom to work at a slower pace,” said Ramirez, a recent graduate of the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena.

The two artists are part of the firm’s new artist-in-residence program, the brainchild of one of the firm’s founding partners, John B. Quinn, a lover of art who has filled much of the firm’s seven floors of offices with contemporary works from his own collection.

Quinn draws parallels between the creativity of artists and that of his own litigators.

“Artists are the antenna of the human race,” he said in an interview. “They tell us what’s going on, what we can’t perceive yet.”