Solicitors' efforts on behalf of their clients do not always receive due recognition. After all, their best pieces of drafting tend to sit in a dusty vault for ages with no-one having a look unless something goes wrong. All they can do is just pride themselves in a job well done and - unless they do legal aid work - a healthy bank balance.


However, just occasionally they are rewarded in other ways. At a recent fundraiser for the Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture, author Tracy Chevalier, who wrote Girl with a Pearl Earring, revealed that as a reward for her support for the charity, Ms Chevalier is to name a character in her new book after City immigration lawyer Laura Devine. Guests were invited to vote on what the character should be - either a mad, Scottish spinster and relative of the main character, or a tightrope walker with a touring circus (the winner) - and Ms Devine has let the success go to her head by telling Obiter that she harbours hopes of playing the character if the book ever gets made into a film. Meanwhile, Hunter Gray, a lawyer at criminal law firm Tuckers who advised on BBC3's new comedy drama about defence solicitors, 'Outlaws', has similarly been immortalised. In one upcoming episode, a law firm called Hunter & Gray is set up as a rival to the protagonists' practice. Fame at last.