Opening ceremonies for international legal conferences are usually odd affairs, but none has come odder than the way the International Bar Association's San Francisco bunfight kicked off over the weekend.

The 3,000-plus delegates were confronted by two very muscular male performance artists stripped to the waist on stage, carrying out a variety of weird and wonderful joint physical contortions that were vaguely homoerotic - so not totally out of keeping with the city's reputation.

They were followed by a woman in the troupe who sent out a strong message to the watching lawyers.

It was all about the need to be flexible (though not necessarily so flexible that you can lay chest-down on the floor, as she did, and bring your feet over your head to touch the ground in front of your face) and the need - quite literally - to bend over backwards, if that's what is necessary to please clients.

Meanwhile, Some may think that being the first chief prosecutor to the world's first permanent International Criminal Court may be a heavy burden, but Luis Moreno-Ocampo appeared to wear it lightly during his appearance at the IBA conference.

Describing himself as an 'ordinary person in an extraordinary position', he skilfully swerved away from some of the vexed political questions surrounding the court by saying that he is simply a lawyer who is doing the job laid down for him.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo - who was the deputy prosecutor in the trials of Argentina's former military junta in the 1980s - can see that things could be far worse.

'It's easier to be the international prosecutor than a prosecutor in my own country,' he told reporters with some feeling.

Indeed, a sentiment the new Director of Public Prosecutions in London, Ken Macdonald QC, may well echo given the difficult time he's had.