Obiter's search for lawyers with a musical claim to fame - prompted by a solicitor backing Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin at a gig in Much Wenlock - has clearly struck a chord (we'll get our coats).

Alan Walton of Somerset firm Chubb Bulleid has written in to ask whether the Law Society has a jazz or musicians' section 'and would it be a topic worth throwing open to those cool cats among us'.


As a session musician on the south coast, Mr Walton played the bass guitar in variety shows and holiday park bands backing such entertainment greats as Bob Monkhouse, Mike and Bernie Winters, Clive Dunn, Ted Rogers and Gary Wilmot. He also played in support bands for top rock acts 'but had to bear the usual stick from the crowd who were waiting to see their idols'.


But in the mid-1970s he had to choose between studying to become a solicitor or working as a musician on a cruise liner. 'In preparation for the latter I did queue up for the dreaded yellow fever jab with none other than "Ooh you are awful" Dick Emery, who amused all of us present by performing a quick moon from behind the screen.'


In the end Mr Walton decided to 'jump ship' and go to college, financing his legal studies by playing the bass guitar. He carried on playing in big bands and jazz groups at festivals, and - now he is a consultant - he says he is 'contemplating going back on the road'.


A special mention must also go to Martin Kemp, a consultant at East Anglia firm Kester Cunningham John. And that's not just because he shares a name with the former bassist in Spandau Ballet.


Mr Kemp's claim to fame is more upmarket, having played Handel sonatas at a party with the guitarist John Williams, and jazz at gigs supporting George Melly and Humphrey Lyttelton. He also appeared for 7.5 seconds in a 1960s feature film starring Alan Bates, pretending to play the saxophone alongside Darlington solicitor Bill Goyder.


As Mr Kemp says, 'none of these has quite the glamour [of] Led Zeppelin, but feel the width'.


However, he has been more than matched by Rob Fink, a trainee solicitor at the London office of Vizards Wyeth.


'I was tempted to write earlier with my claim to musical fame,' he says - 'jamming Stairway to Heaven with Rolf Harris on Hyde Park bandstand. Given the competition, I'm glad I didn't.'


Instead, Mr Fink supplies us with yet another connection to death metal band Cradle of Filth. He says he once played drums with a band called Failed Humanity, whose delightfully-named album, The Sound of Razors Through Flesh, apparently still sells well in Scandinavia.


'The link? Well, an ex-drummer of Cradle of Filth called Sargenson joined as drummer of the grindcore band Extreme Noise Terror in 1995. Extreme Noise Terror eventually took as a drummer one Zac O'Neill, who had replaced me as a drummer in Failed Humanity a year or so before. Tenous? Absolutely.'


However, Dani Filth, singer in Cradle of Filth, did drink in The Spreadeagle pub in Ipswich back in the 1990s when Mr Fink worked there as a barman. 'Tiny bloke. We reckon no more than 5'4".'