Lawyer-bashing extends to the final frontier

As the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness draws near, the newspapers' attitudes towards lawyers seem to become less lawyer-bashing and more begrudgingly admiring.

The Mail on Sunday, traditional home of all anti-lawyer sentiments, ran a profile of 'rock'n'roll lawyer' Dave Franks, partner at central London firm the Simkins Partnership.

Mr Franks, who specialises in music and theatre entertainment law, is apparently 'as likely to be found backstage with the stars as he is sitting at his desk' (15 September), as his client list stretches all the way from the dizzy heights of Sir Cliff Richard to Lord Lloyd-Webber.

Mr Franks modestly admits that 'people say that media and entertainment law sounds more interesting than conveyancing, and it is.'

The MoS keeps up its remarkable change of heart with another positive solicitor profile - this time of 'US fraudbuster John Lawrence Allen' (15 September).

Mr Allen recently represented a group of Merrill Lynch investors, who received $100 million (65 million) in an out-of-court settlement from the bank, which they accused of offering biased investment advice.

He is now heading to the UK, where he plans to team up with London litigation lawyer and City of London Law Society chairman David Wylde.

The pair's sights are firmly locked on 'brokers who work for American investment banks in London and invest in US markets for British clients'.

And Mr Allen's claim that his telephone has 'been jumping off the hook with newly impoverished investors wanting to know if they have a case against their brokers' should act as a warning shot to all crooked City boys.

Another champion of the underdog has emerged this week in the shape of lawyer Richard Field, a 'veteran of dozens of high-profile lawsuits in the US (Evening Standard, 13 September).

Mr Field and his international consultancy, Judica, in conjunction with Manchester-based law firm Betesh Fox & Co, have taken on the sprawling task of seeking compensation for the 7,000 investors in Claims Direct who lost money when the failed insurance company collapsed earlier this year.

Judica is focusing its wrath on the former directors of Claims Direct Anthony Sullman - otherwise known, according to the Standard, as 'English Tony', an occasional visitor to Las Vegas gaming tables - and Colin Poole, who spends his time 'relaxing at his 2 million Shropshire mansion, with a fleet of expensive cars parked outside'.

Not for much longer if the shareholders get their way; the paper says that 'hundreds of them, some of whom lost up to 1 million, have expressed interest in recovering their losses'.

More chill wind was felt this week by civil liberties groups after the Court of Appeal ruled that 'the police can keep DNA samples and fingerprints of people who have never been convicted of an offence' (Daily Telegraph, 13 September).

Civil liberties groups condemned the decision - which would mean that 'anyone suspected of an imprisonable offence could be added permanently to a national DNA database, even if never charged' - claiming that 'the new powers discriminated against innocent suspects and invaded their privacy'.

And finally, the Financial Times reports wearily that 'space tourism is less a fledgling industry than a barely hatched one, but already the lawyers are getting involved (14 September).

Next month's International Bar Association conference in South Africa has a session on legal issues associated with tourism on the final frontier.

Never one to miss a pun, the FT pointed out that 'complaints about astronomical legal fees could take on a whole new meaning.'

Victoria MacCallum