Burger this
“Why tarrieth thou in McDonald’s?” was what one of Tulkinghorn’s spies asked himself as he cooled his heels in the Chancery Lane branch of the well-known burgermongers recently.
No room at the Inn: Gray’s Inn luvvie buffet was no place for a humble hack
The hack had sought shelter in the fast-food outlet as a “lack of seating” at a buffet dinner had forced him out of Gray’s Inn during the interval of the recent charity performance of The Trial of Romeo, an updated take on the classic Shakespeare tale that featured a stellar list of silks and received blanket coverage on The Lawyer’s back page last week. Not that this was enough for him to get a berth at the trough.
Indeed, the hapless hack was force to swap an elegant buffet and charming legal conversation for a graceless shove to the Maccy D counter and
an unappetising dollop of greasy chips. The luckless vegetarian had no choice but to hole up in the joint during the hour-long break as it was one of the few establishments in the vicinity to remain open past 9pm.
Even one of the complimentary theatre-style ice creams on offer at the performance was not lobbed his way upon his return to Gray’s Inn. Shame on them.
Tulkinghorn notes that there didn’t seem to be such a problem finding a seat for the performance itself.
As the name implies…
If you’re unlucky your name can have the unfortunate habit of casting a long shadow over your professional career - just ask Queens Park Rangers FC defender Danny Shittu.
Thus there was never much doubt what sort of path a legal practitioner called Versteyl would take. German administrative lawyer Andrea Versteyl has remained true to her name, clocking up her third firm in the space of 18 months - and her fourth in five years. Versteyl indeed.
The lawyer split from boutique Prof Versteyl Rechtsanwälte, where she practised with former husband Ludger-Anselm Versteyl, in 2006 to form the innovatively named Andrea Versteyl Rechtsanwälte.
Our adaptable friend then saw her firm absorbed into public law big-boy Redeker Sellner Dahs & Widmaier, only to pull out of the arrangement this summer to resume her long and winding road back to independence.
But the tale of this aptronym pales in comparison with that of former Sullivan & Cromwell corporate associate Sue Yoo, who once told The Wall Street Journal: “I figured with my name that litigation would possibly be the worst area of law to go into.”
Meanwhile, Parker Poe’s environmental expert Max Justice presumably dishes it out firmly but fairly, while Deans Court Chambers’ Lisa Judge seems to have her career path mapped out already.
And that’s not to mention Roger ter Haar QC of Crown Office Chambers, tipped in some corners of the profession as a shoo-in for a legal remake of Treasure Island.
Rod man out
It has come to Tulkinghorn’s attention that lawyers can occasionally have the teensiest tendency to be competitive - even on holiday.
Take Akin Gump’s Greg Hammond, for example. One of Tulkinghorn’s spies recently spoke to the affable London energy partner and discovered he was preparing to head over the border with his family for a “relaxing” trip to the wilds of Scotland.
“We’re going salmon fishing on the River Findhorn,” revealed Hammond, referring to the promising stretch of water that, according toaboutscotland.com, “rises in the Monadhliath Mountains above Strathdearn and is fed by numerous tributaries as it tumbles over a bed of rocks and gravel to the Moray Firth at Findhorn Bay”.
Sounds divine, thought Tulkinghorn, mentally donning his Vibrams-soled walkers.
“It’s also stuffed to the gills with fish,” added Hammond, who discovered this factoid for himself last year.
“We broke the record when we caught 36 fish in one week,” he recalled. “It was a double-edged sword though. When we realised on Thursday that we were in with a chance of breaking the record we started getting up at 5am to go fishing. Once we’d broken it we relaxed.”
Lawyers and holidays, eh. Who says they don’t mix?
