Last week’s funeral of Lady Thatcher left half the Gazette’s newsdesk – and significant numbers of lawyers – stranded on the wrong side of a line of steel opposite the Royal Courts of Justice. Such a disruption got Obiter wondering: was this a posthumous dig at members of the bar located on what we might call the wrong side of Fleet Street?

The sleepless polymath was, of course, called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn. Like Gray’s, Lincoln’s Inn is north of a line running from Parliament Square, along Fleet Street, and up Ludgate Hill – a position it shares with the Supreme Court, the Royal Courts of Justice, the Old Bailey, and the newish Rolls Building. Rich pickings for skilled or ambitious advocates.

To the south of this line, the only accessible dispute resolution option is mediation HQ the International Centre for Dispute Resolution. For one day only, that was rather bad news for members of rivals Inner and Middle Temple. Though maybe Obiter shouldn’t be surprised that even in her passing, Lady Thatcher was capable of creating a north/south divide.