Journalists’ nerves were twitching at the end of 2006 as powerful evidence emerged that lawyers are overrunning the traditional preserves of Fleet Street hacks. No longer satisfied with throwing buckets of cold water over cracking good copy with spoilsport claims that stories might be slightly inaccurate or potentially defamatory, lawyers apparently now want to do the job of journalism itself. A short article in a recent Press Gazette sounds a worrying note as it points to the appointment last summer of Imogen Haddon as The Independent’s managing editor. A solicitor, Ms Haddon was the Indy’s former deputy head of legal, having moved to the paper after spending four exciting years in Allen & Overy’s corporate M&A department. While that was bad enough, the problem was compounded at the end of last year when The Guardian announced that its new readers’ editor is to be the paper’s former head of legal, Siobhain Butterworth, who had a private practice career at London-based Stephens Innocent before moving to Fleet Street. The Press Gazette expresses its ‘alarm’ at this encroachment, which this Gazette feels duty bound to welcome.