There are many stunning examples of mass movement in the natural world - herds of wildebeest migrating in Africa, flocks of monarch butterflies in Mexico and Canada geese in North America. But there is perhaps nothing as impressive and awe inspiring as the annual stampede of City-based assistant solicitors triggered by the release of the latest Chambers Directory of the legal profession. Last week, London's Waldorf Hotel was the venue for the yearly ritual. Michael Chambers - the recruitment agent to directory editor magnate - sounded the traditional note on his own trumpet (literally) and they were off. Presumably instructed by their senior partners not to leave without several copies each of the weighty tome, young assistants scrabbled over one another in an undignified rush to see who has climbed up or slipped down the Chambers ratings ladder. Tired and emotional young lawyers had to be escorted into waiting taxicabs, so overcome were they with the sheer emotion of the event. One legal aid/human rights lawyer chuntered that what irritated him most was that the City slickers pinched all the carriers, leaving him to lug his book home on the Tube tucked uncomfortably under his arm.