Often Obiter is left slack-jawed and gawping at the ever-increasing glitz and glamour of law firm parties, as the leading City players attempt to outperform each other in an ostentatious equivalent of keeping with the Jones & Partners. So it was refreshing last week to be invited to what felt a bit like a university party, with people hanging around drinking lagers in the kitchen, talking nonsense about existential novelists of the 1950s and '60s. All right, so we exaggerate, but the bash to celebrate the move to new London premises of Birmingham firm Martineau Johnson was charmingly low key. Senior partner Roger Blears was as excited as a school boy and the event proved that you don't have to get the marketing department to throw a budget the size of Bolivia's GDP at a party for clients and contacts to have good time. One curiosity in MJ's new offices was the names of the meeting rooms. Clearly the Brummies decided that they should try to make their London clients feel at home by labelling the rooms 'Blackfriars', 'Tower' and 'Thames'. But it must have been tempting to stand by their roots and go for 'Bull Ring', 'Spaghetti Junction' and 'Lap Dance'. The latter being appropriate on the basis that Birmingham reportedly has the highest density of strip clubs in the country - with one that caters exclusively for women customers.