Killer courts

The creme of the capital's litigators attended the annual dinner of the London Solicitors Litigation Association last week at the Law Society in Chancery Lane.

Litigators being voracious carnivores, red meat was on the menu - as was controversy.

Speaking after the dinner, Lord Justice May, deputy head of civil justice, said it was high time for juries to be abolished in libel cases and actions against the police, the last two areas of civil law where they still sit.

The best line of the evening went to the venerable former law lord, Lord Griffiths, who compared High Court trials with Court of Appeal hearings thus: 'The trial is like the doctor looking after the patient, while the Appeal Court is like the pathologist trying to work out what killed him.'