Obiter goes extreme this week. Jean Walker (below right), managing partner at the wonderfully named Thrasher Walker Partnership in Stockport, and Mark Bates, an in-house lawyer at professional indemnity insurer Collegiate, have just completed the 2007 Polar Challenge. Their team, which also included Scotland-based chartered engineer Ian Hunter, came third (out of eight) in the event.


The challenge involves skiing 350 miles across the Arctic in temperatures of up to minus 50 degrees centrigade while trying to avoid the local polar bear population. The team took 16 days, eight hours and 55 minutes to complete the course, raising more than £4,000 for brain injury charity Headway in the process.



Ms Walker believes her background as a lawyer helped her through. 'As a solicitor, I'm used to tackling intellectual challenges, whereas the Arctic journey was a long, physical slog,' she says. 'However, my job also requires mental stamina and a determination to see things through to the end, which I believe proved even more important than the physical training I underwent for a year.'



Meanwhile, Leeds firm Robinsons employed a slightly less-gruelling way of making their mark on the Arctic. The firm sponsored Bristol fireman Dan Munden (left), who took part in the (separate) 2007 Polar Race and kindly flew the practice's flag at the North Pole. Not even Clifford Chance can say that. Or can they? Mr Munden was raising funds for Wallace and Gromit's Grand Appeal, which aims to improve the quality of life for children at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children and the Fire Services National Benevolent Fund.



Meanwhile six partners and members of staff at Newcastle firm Crutes - Brendon Jones, Alyson Vickers, Nicola Grey, Hayley Broadley, Rebecca Spiers and Paul Hughes - recently jumped out of a plane at 10,000 ft to raise more than £3,200 for the Multiple Sclerosis Trust. Pictured above is Ms Vickers and her instructor Mal Richardson, two miles up and falling at 120mph.