Big future

The great thing about appearing on 'Big Brother', however briefly, is that it catapults you into the public arena where you can pick up all sorts of publicity work.

Such as the recent lawyers' cricket challenge held at Battersea Park in London.

Pupil barrister Sunita Sharma (who walked out of the BB house in the first week) was on hand for the presentation ceremony after torrential rain brought play to a premature halt.

The upside was that both finalists got to spend a moment in the presence of the country's most famous barrister (after Rumpole and Kavanagh, at least).

Jeffrey Lewis of Camden firm Lewis Nedas (left) and Philip Cremin of Brixton-based Cremin Small were the lucky pair.

The future's not so bright

Northern firm Cobbetts has celebrated its 1,000th instruction from telecoms giant Orange by sending us bumf which one might suggest is hardly pushing forward the boundaries of equality within the legal profession.

The press release accompanying this photo begins: 'Never one to shy away from a photo opportunity with his harem, head of property Stephen Benson is celebrating with the firm's telecoms team...' It goes on to name 'the bevy of beauties' as solicitors Catherine Haslam, Caroline Pilgrim and Melanie Kirby, legal executive Paula Burrows, trainee Catherine Young and secretaries Sarah Murray and Kelly Doyle.

The fact that they are all wearing black also disturbs Obiter, for some reason.

A PR bod reassures us that Mr Benson does have male staff as well, but presumably they were unavailable for the photo shoot.

Solicitor is all shook up by The King

Obiter never likes to see a bandwagon roll past without jumping on it with both feet, but the 25th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death last week did present something of a problem as there was no obvious link with the English and Welsh solicitors' profession.

So, we just turned to the modern journalist's favourite tool and wacked the words 'Elvis' and 'solicitor' into an Internet search engine.

And out popped Mark Morrell, a personal injury and clinical negligence partner at Huddersfield firm Ludgate Morrell.

Mr Morrell's ambition, according to the firm's Web site, is to appear on 'Stars in their Eyes'.

It explains: 'He practises his Elvis Presley impression every day in the office and likes to be called "The King".' Mr Morrell was on holiday when we called, but his secretary confirmed - a touch wearily, we thought - that he can often be heard warbling Elvis tunes around the office in a style that we got the impression is less like The King than Mr Morrell might like to think.

Still, 'A little less conversation, a little more action' is an attitude that a few more solicitors could employ.

Landing not very well

These are troubling times for Landwell, the UK arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers' legal network, which has been much under fire over its slow progress and position in the London market.

But the partners probably thought they were safe by sponsoring and taking part in a Dragon Boat regatta held in London in aid of children's charity NCH.

The good news is that it raised more than 20,000; the bad news is that accountancy rivals Ernst & Young took third place behind Deutsche Bank and computer software company BEA but ahead of Landwell.

'We of course congratulate the winners Deutsche Bank and all the runners-up,' said senior partner Chris Arnheim through gritted teeth.

Rumours that Christopher Tite and Mark Lewis, the eponymous heads of Ernst & Young's legal arm, were seen by the river bank proclaiming this as the natural order of things are, we are assured, entirely false.