Among the many serious topics under debate in Chicago, there was still time for some laughs:

'A representative of England's oldest overseas colony' - IBA president Francis Neate introduces former Irish president Mary Robinson at the IBA/ABA rule of law conference, after he had remarked: 'I thought we had shed our colonialist attitudes, but apparently we have not'.


'John Travolta made more money playing me than I ever made' - US claimant lawyer Jan Schlichtmann, the subject of the film 'A Civil Action'.


'It was like one panel had watched Casablanca and the other had watched Key Largo' - Warren Winkler, a judge of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Canada, reflects on the claimant and defendant panels that had earlier discussed class actions.


'It's a cross between gridiron and wrestling' - Alan Ritchie, chief executive of the Law Society of New Zealand, tries to explain rugby to American delegates.


'The wheel is turning, but the hamsters are all dead'; 'Some drink from the fountain of knowledge; he only gargles'; 'Since my last evaluation, this employee has reached rock bottom and has started to dig'; 'He sets low standards and constantly fails to achieve them' - Boris Groysberg of Harvard Business School recounts some employee evaluations during a session on leading and motivating highly skilled professionals.


'It's very common to hear of lawyers who play cards with judges on the weekends and always lose' - Nepalese lawyer Sudheer Shrestha.