Deep within the City of Churches a fight to the death is brewing between two of Adelaide’s most respected law firms over the niche talent pool of greetings card designers.

Only weeks after Kelly & Co. put up $2,000 as a lure for humble arts students to create the best folded piece of cardboard to butter up clients over the festive season, cross-town rival Fisher Jefferies upped the ante to $2,500.

To be fair, the respective offers have been made exclusively to students within separate tertiary institutions.

But, hey, it’s not all rocket salad and turkey breast in the arts faculty. Taken by the $500 carrot, who could blame a budding Van Gough for wanting to transfer from Adelaide Uni to the SA School of Art to help fund their next set of Derwents?

Those entering the Fisher Jefferies contest, will, however, be made to work harder for their chance at a larger slice of mince pie. The firm has outlined a range of briefs that competing cards must adhere to, one of which is a “shelf life of four to six weeks”.

Folklaw suggests students should carefully consider including a ‘use by’ specification on the rear, preferably a date after which it would be considered medically unsafe for recipients to consume the message inside.

A dedicated follower of fashion

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On a recent visit to Sydney town, Folklaw decided to travel west — as far as Parramatta, anyway — where we bumped into a former uptown solicitor who had fallen upon hard-ish times.

Our friend had for several years been working happily for a highly reputable mid-tier firm whose premises grace one of the newest office blocks in the CBD.

That was until senior management asked this fellow to see a stylist. And get some elocution lessons. Oh, and while you’re at it, a couple of new suits.

You see, the young man in question, born and bred amidst fibro and flanno, didn’t appear to have what it took to make it in the cufflinked field of commercial law. Not according to him, but to his former employer.

Perhaps he should have paid more attention to offerings in the latest Marcs catalogue. Perhaps, instead of wasting his money on supporting his family, he should have spent it on getting his eyebrows plucked.

In fact, he’s probably pulling those very hairs out right now wondering why, oh why, he didn’t wear mini garter belts to keep his socks up.

Maybe all the fuss could have been avoided if he tried not to be so annoyingly individual.

Fox scores a Freehills ride

In what can only be interpreted as a heartwarming gesture of consideration, Freehills recently put out a major alert on their website to remind visitors about the current Digital Agenda Review.

As we all know, their national competitor Phillips Fox scored the right to conduct the review of Federal online copyright provisions some time ago and is still raking in the bucks as we speak.

So what then does Freehills have to gain by giving its rivals a free plug?

Well for a start, there was — astonishingly — no mention of Phillips Fox’s involvement on the site. Heaven forbid if a client bearing a pair of untrained ears were to log on — they’d be liable to think A-G Daryl Williams was performing the whole thing himself!

Secondly, there’s the small matter of the rather large number of people (some of them cashed up even) who are preparing to pass their views on, but may need some help in doing so.

To illustrate the point, 72 big wigs attended an all-day public forum in Melbourne this month and almost double that are expected to front up in Sydney next week.

And then we have the implementation period. When there’s somethin’ strange in the new copyright hood — who you gonna call?

Obiter

Pensioner caught Red handed

The prospect of a long prison sentence is of little consequence to a recently arrested US bank robber, widely estimated to be the oldest of his kind.

Whatever term within the 2-20 year range available probably matters not to Hunter ‘Red’ Rountree who, at 91 years of age, would be unlikely to see things out.

The pensioner was detained by police earlier this month shortly after being reported for stealing US$3,000 from a Texas bank. According to witnesses, the senior citizen pulled off the heist without a weapon and was armed with only a large envelope carrying the word “ROBBERY” on its front, into which he requested the money be placed.

Police later said Rountree committed the robbery — his second in the past five years — because of an intense hatred of banks.

In 1999 Rountree held up a bank in Florida and was convicted, which led to him being crowned with the honour of being the state’s oldest inmate.

Costly slip of the tongue

A chance encounter has turned out to be not so lucky for would-be Brisbane romeo Philip Corvo.

The 25 year-old was recently jailed because of a remarkable mix up involving a mysterious young woman in his bed.

Returning home a little under the weather in 1999, Corvo assumed things would become a lot more wet and wild when he discovered a 20 year-old female public servant asleep between his sheets.

Presumably without a thought, oral sex was commenced and Corvo testified that he understood his actions were consented to.

Not so, according to the assault victim. She claimed to have mistakenly believed that it was the head of Corvo’s friend, with whom she had previously slept that night, betwixt her legs.

What the couple was doing canoodling in the chamber of another was not revealed, but in the end the bed hop was partly responsible for a $37,000 award in respect of the woman’s resultant post-traumatic stress disorder.

Courtroom Quotes

If this guy’s nose was as hairy as it is brown, he’d be classified as an endangered species of wombat.

The passage below is taken from an email sent to every member of staff from UK-based global firm Clyde & Co. It was forwarded by a recently recruited solicitor, so chuffed by his appointment that he felt his future workmates deserved to share in the adulation.

For the sake of a profession with a serious image problem, we persist with false hope that it’s all a gee up.

“Dear Colleagues,

In September I will qualify as an English lawyer and am delighted to tell you that I have been offered a post in the Marine Casualty & Transport Department of Clyde & Co’s Guildford office.

My traineeship with Clyde & Co has been a great learning curve and a very rewarding experience. Looking back, I still can recall the excitement of knowing that I was one of 21 trainee solicitors who were selected from thousands [of] candidates in 2001. Two years didn’t take long at all to pass by.

I am extremely grateful to Clyde & Co for putting their trust in me. I hope you know that I will always strive to do the best job I possibly can and very much look forward to working with you in the future.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for the support, friendship and cooperation given to me during the fabulous training time at Clyde & Co. I wish for your continued well-being and success in the future and look forward to our continued friendship.

In the meantime, as I will be opening a new chapter in my life’s book in September, I sincerely ask for the continued generosity and support you have given to me so far.