The annual conference of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG) may seem an unlikely setting for joviality given the situation endured by many in the face of continued fee cuts. But, you’ve got to laugh, as they say. And Obiter was pleased to see this was something even the legal aid minister, Lord Bach, seemed to understand. Bach listened politely while LAPG chairman Roy Morgan invited delegates to take part in a mock online auction to demonstrate the unsuitability of the best value tendering process for legal services provision. Delegates had to imagine they were tendering for contracts to produce leaflets for the Legal Services Commission. When the contract price fell below the level at which firms could break even, they were invited to consider how they could cut corners to make a profit. Bach said he enjoyed Morgan’s game playing and went on to add a little comedy of his own. He told a joke about a businessman who has to leave court before the end of his civil trial. The man asks his lawyer to email him the result. The lawyer duly sends the message ‘justice has been done,’ to which the businessman replies ‘appeal at once’.