A sandwich short...

RBS was forced to write off £15m of taxpayers’ money after it made a mere
£7m from flogging off the law firm. Then there are the partners, who lost the capital they invested. These include former managing partner Ian Austin, now a departmental head at Heatons, who claims to have written off £700,000 (see story).

And of course there are the dozens of staff made redundant without the luxury of having senior jobs elsewhere to walk into.

But as The Lawyer reveals today, a further £14m is owed to creditors including charities and small businesses (see story). Among the collapsed firm’s creditors are St John Ambulance, which is owed a grand, as well as several chauffeur companies, florists and stationers, while the firm is also indebted to the College of Law to the tune of £450,000 for unpaid LPC fees (see story).

The manager of London sandwich shop Pavarotti’s, which has not been paid for £4,000 worth of sustenance it provided to the firm, was unequivocal in his view of the firm: it “took the p*ss”.

He said it.

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Also on TheLawyer.com:  Not even the worst recession since the 1930s has managed to keep magic circle rates down, according to an annual hourly rates survey by costs lawyer Jim Diamond; meet the woman taking the Met to task over the News of the World phone-hacking saga; and remembering Lord Bingham.

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In The Lawyer on Monday: Halliwells and the ciabatta-gate scandal; the lawyer at the heart of the tabloid phone hacking scandal; and are hourly rates heading north again?

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