The great unwashed
Obiter enjoys a good awards ceremony, particularly one where the recipients are dubbed 'unqualified, unprofessional - and frequently unwashed'. This characterisation of students by Law Works chairman Paul Newdick of Clyde & Co did not go unchallenged by the Attorney-General. Lord Goldsmith countered: 'My son is still a student and I wouldn't want such disparaging remarks getting back to him.' The exchange took place at the Attorney-General's Student and Law School Pro Bono Awards 2007 in the House of Lords last week. The individual winner was Jenisa Thumbadoo, now a research editor at legal publisher PLC, who gets to visit award sponsors DLA Piper's New York office. For the record, Ms Thumbadoo and all the other winners and runners-up deported themselves most professionally. And they all looked well-scrubbed, too.



Entries have meanwhile been coming in for Obiter's search for a collective noun for pro bono lawyers, which was prompted by a competition run by the National Pro Bono Centre in Australia. Suggestions so far include a 'knowingness', a 'respect', an 'emancipation', a 'brains trust', a 'vanguard' (all from Peter Dodd, a trainee solicitor at Temple Heelis in Cumbria) and a 'goodonyer' (from Stanley Klarfeld of Levine Mellins Klarfeld in Stanmore). Then there was the contribution from James Bagby of Russell & Russell in Chester, who said: 'Given the current climate, may we suggest the following collective noun - "criminal legal aid lawyers".'