Who says lawyers aren't much to look at? Christine Youlden, artist and former Browne Jacobson solicitor, certainly doesn't think so. Over the past decade, she has spent painstaking hours painting the great and the good of the legal world - and this week launched an exhibition of legal portraits at The Chambers Gallery in London, which will run until 25 January. Previous muses include the Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips, Master of the Rolls Sir Anthony Clarke, Baroness Butler-Sloss, former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, Dame Brenda Hale, and politician and former barrister Ken Clarke - all of whom turned up to quaff champagne at the show's launch last week. Indeed, Cherie Blair and our very own correspondent Joshua Rozenberg have also sat for Ms Youlden. With three-quarters of the paintings already bought by sitters, the portraits have clearly proved popular. Some legal luminaries, however, have refused Ms Youlden's advances - she reveals that Lord Irvine and Sir John Mortimer both refused to be painted. Is it hard to get such terribly busy folk to pose dutifully for the required two two-hour sessions? 'Most of them are surprisingly able to sit still,' she says. 'They are often deep in thought; though I have had a few who have fallen asleep.' But as to a wish-list of future legal subjects, one gets the impression Ms Youlden may have had enough. 'I may do some more,' she says, 'but my next subject is an air hostess.'