Last week's opening of the College of Law's gleaming new City of London branch was yet another opportunity for famous and well-heeled alumni to gather and swap anecdotes about their impoverished student years. In one of the formal speeches, the chairman of the college's board of governors, Charles Plant (who is the former senior litigation partner at Square Mile firm Herbert Smith), briefly had the crowd on tenterhooks when he reminisced, 'I was at the Guildford branch of the college in 1967, and what a different place it was then...' A palpable air of excitement descended as guests anticipated tales of the Summer of Love in Surrey &150; drugs, sex, Berkeley-style protests against the Vietnam War, running battles with the local constabulary and just generally entertaining hippy behaviour. But no... what was so different? Well, the course was only six months long and it wasn't quite so business-orientated as it is now. Cheers, Charles. Rock 'n' roll lawyers, or what?


Meanwhile, a touch of reality crept into the proceedings for the few college students who had managed to crash the launch gig. Bang opposite the reception were the floor-to-ceiling windows of Slaughter and May's canteen, affording a clear view of the worker bees as they slurped pots of hot coffee before presumably trudging back upstairs for another late-nighter.