Balkan Bravado

Macfarlanes' experience of semi-nude Scandinavians and high-speed Spanish car chases has been relegated to number two position in the 'possibly the most difficult document-serving situations' chart.

Try serving a court document on notorious Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic.

John Reynolds, litigation partner at US firm McDermott Will & Emery, told the Gazette of his attempts to serve the Balkan politician and 15 of his henchmen last year as part of a representative action on behalf of the families of Kosovan Albanians, filed at the US Supreme Court in Massachusetts.

One of the main problems proved to be that the bombing of Belgrade had destroyed the addresses.

The brave litigator, armed with three more addresses and backed up by trusty couriers DHL, finally managed to track down Mr Milosevic, despite worries of potential reprisals.

But so far the writ has been ignored.

Mr Reynolds said: 'I was the mug that got named in the press release and I didn't want burly eastern Europeans threatening my wife and kids.' And who can blame him?