Rocket men

Obiter was lucky enough to join a gaggle of other legal hacks at a Sir Elton John concert last week courtesy of City firm Berwin Leighton Paisner.

Sadly, we missed the porn star-style stretch limo the firm hired to take everyone to Wembley, but we did have a superb seat to watch old Reg set the Arena jumping with a clutch of his classics and some of his more recent numbers.

The audience was hugely diverse in terms of age, and sitting there among the middle-aged men jigging around with more enthusiasm than skill, like your father at a family wedding, we realised that Sir Elton is actually a massive inspiration for the legal profession: here we have a short, dumpy, non-descript fifty-something man from Pinner who through hard work and even harder play is still at the top and pulling in a big whack.

The Rocket Man has an hourly rate that would make the top brass at any Magic Circle firm swoon.

So as belts continue to tighten in the City and older partners start to hear whispers that maybe they'd prefer to be consultants or just retire altogether, may there be many non-descript fifty-something men who get up at partnership meetings and declare proudly, 'I'm still standing'.