A certain degree of perspicacity is required to stand up in front of a jury, and US trial lawyer Richard Grand is a great believer in developing the next generation the hard way. Mr Grand is the founder of the Inner Circle of Advocates in the US, an exclusive 100-strong group of top claimant personal injury lawyers, and honorary president of its English cousin, the Richard Grand Society, an even more exclusive grouping of 23 claimant lawyers, including such luminaries as Rodger Pannone, Ann Alexander, Patrick Allen and Geraldine McCool.

Anyway, Mr Grand sponsors an annual debating competition at his alma mater, Arizona University, and to mark its tenth anniversary, he has produced a booklet full of little phrases and aphorisms, meant to be 'grand ideas for future trial lawyers'. On their face, they look a bit odd, ranging from 'Pain is the tool of torturers' and 'You have to be the designated mourner', to 'He ran all the way', 'Permanency' and 'Mama mama'. Mr Grand explains to us that it is for the students to work out what these 'crisp sentences that wrap up bales of thoughts' mean. 'Mama mama', apparently, refers back to what dying soldiers caught in no man's land during the First World War would cry out, an image which could come in useful in a particular kind of case, we guess.


Of course, Mr Grand's raised profile in the UK is due largely to the Gazette. We ran a story in 1997 about the Inner Circle, and on speaking to Mr Grand, we asked if he had any plans to set up a similar group in the UK. Mr Grand, in truth, had not given the idea much thought, but happy to give us a good story, said he was considering it. And when he read this, John Cahill of London firm Stewarts called us for Mr Grand's details, founded the Richard Grand Society, and the rest, one might say, is legal history. It just goes to show how it pays to read the Gazette.