Royal solicitors have to mix with the common herd

It is not often that law firm mergers make the nationals, but when the Queens law firm is planning to merge with Neil Hamiltons solicitors, the media specialist firm Crockers Oswald Hickson (The Independent, 9 May), the story is too good for journalists to resist.Farrer & Co, which has represented the Royal Family for 70 years, has been forced to face up to the realities of consumer choice and the diminishing cachet of House of Windsor plc, and announce a merger with its former rivals.The Independent reported how the toffs solicitors had the same commercial pressures as other firms, and smirked that the merger will bring the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh under the same legal roof as the celebrity magazine Hello!.It was a vintage week for poking fun at the great and good, as with the inevitability of rain in May the latest Lord Irvine outrage hit the papers.

Not this time pricey wallpaper, cash for wigs or judicial reform, but the more scandalous case of Darjeeling and digestives; specifically the revelation that the Lord Chancellor spent 75,000 of taxpayers money (Daily Mail, 14 May) on tea and biscuits for guests of his department.Admittedly, the sum covered funding for official ceremonies as well as the tea and biscuits for meetings, but the Mail thundered that Irvine outspends Tony Blair, and the bill was yet another example of a senior government minister enjoying the trappings of power too much.

They also quoted a particularly sharp Lord Chancellors spokesman who explained sheepishly that we do have a lot of meetings.Under fire on more substantial grounds was the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which this week was facing calls for a review of its guidelines after abandoning a 10,000 racially aggravated assault case against a boy following a playground spat (The Sunday Times, 13 May).The CPS was accused by a High Court judge of over-reacting and using a sledgehammer to crack a nut after continuing with the prosecution of an 11-year old boy accused of 17 racial incidents against a Pakistani schoolboy, a charge that the accuseds lawyers claimed was little more than a glorified schoolyard incident.The CPS faced attack on another front, as a man accused of raping a 14-year-old girl was allowed to walk free after a crown lawyer failed to turn up at court on bank holiday Monday (The Independent, 12 May).

The man, who was in custody over the weekend, was allowed to walk free after the presiding magistrate was left with no choice but to discharge him because no evidence against him was presented.

The CPS, unsurprisingly, has apologised.And finally, more evidence of the crazy, fun-lovin nature of some of the Citys top lawyers.

The Financial Times (14 May) reported how Denton Wilde Sapte has linked with the Association of Independent Music, a trade organisation for independent UK record companies, to set up a free legal advice service on the associations Web site at: www.musicindie.org The site is apparently designed to reassure people who would normally run a mile from a big corporate law firm.

So, to make them feel more at home, Dentons lawyer John Benedict has been rechristened Doctor John in his legal clinic.Victoria MacCallum