A postscript to the recent International Bar Association beano in Chicago comes from the Gazette's family law correspondent, Gill Rivers, a consultant at City firm Charles Russell. Having met a local judge at a social function, she was invited to witness firsthand how justice operates in Cook County. Ms Rivers goes on: 'The judge's clerk to whom I was told to report sat me fairly and squarely among the wide-shouldered advocates. The judge surveyed his empire from his lofty bench, surrounded by armed guards and United States flags flapping in every available nook and cranny of the court.



'What surprised me was the relative informality of the setting. It was rather like being in the middle of a noisy cattle market. The advocates approached the bench, and remained standing at all times (clearly there is no budget for chairs in Cook County) and attempted to make their representations. The judge wasn't taking any truck from anyone and there was no doubt whose court I had found myself in. I cannot conceive of a similar court room scene in the UK and, frankly, I wouldn't want to - the noise was such that I don't think I would even remember my own name, never mind that of my client.'



After sitting there for some time, fiddling away quietly at her beloved BlackBerry, Ms Rivers then became aware of a lull in proceedings as all eyes turned to her. 'Who are you?' the judge demanded. 'What are you doing in my court?' The armed guards, clearly sensing an interloper in their midst, shouted at her to 'approach the bench'. For our game correspondent, as she tottered forward, it brought back memories of the terror she suffered as a 17-year-old legal executive when she was sent to sit in on a criminal case and, because nobody had explained to her what the dock was, decided to sit in it, as it was the only available seat in the court.



Happily for all concerned (except any trigger-happy guards, perhaps), the judge then remembered his offer and promptly suspended his sitting to whisk Ms Rivers into his private chambers for a half-hour exposition on, as she puts it, 'the judicial process in his manor'. They then returned to the court, where 'the cases that followed, from time to time that day, "benefited" from an English take in their determination'.



Life on the 65th floor of the Daley Building in Chicago is a world away from the civility of the English courts, but Ms Rivers clearly enjoyed her time dispensing US justice. 'Eat your heart out, London judges,' she tells us. 'I have already applied to the Illinois bench.'