It seems that every winter since lawyers first crawled from the slimy primordial swamp, there has been a meeting of European bar leaders in the frosty Austrian capital of Vienna. Organised by the Austrian bar, the conference is held in the ornate surroundings of the Palais Ferstel, and is designed to be a platform for updates and exchanges of views. All well and good and nice and cosy - except that now heresy is being discussed. At last week's gathering, there were distinct grumblings from some of the larger jurisdictions about the focus of the annual conflab. Fair enough, they acknowledge, the conference was a good touchstone during the cold war when it was more or less the only time lawyers from both sides of the iron curtain were able to have a friendly chin-wag. But that purpose fell away 15 years ago, and now some see the meeting as little more than an opportunity for the Austrian bar to present interminably long research papers &150; although delegates this year knocked out a hard-hitting statement slamming the third money laundering directive. If we must do this, ask the heritics, why are we always doing it in Vienna? Surely it should revolve around European capitals if it were a true European bar leaders meeting. Prepare for Austrian noses to be out of joint soon.