With his speech Friday night drinks: The lawyer's guide to scoring a touchdown, which provided a comical "what-not-to-do" list at Friday night drinks, Mallesons Stephen Jaques lawyer Nick Russell beat seven other finalists across the country to win the 2011 National Golden Gavel Award on 16 September.

With only 24 hours to prepare his speech, Russell, although "petrified", was able to call upon his Friday night expertise gained during his fledgling legal career at Mallesons, to come up with the winning material.

Unfortunately, Folklaw was unable to attend the Golden Gavel competition this year, but is hoping, for the sake of the profession, that the judge and recently qualified barrister, Mark Holden, from Australian Idol fame, was able to contain his apparently persistent need to do enact a "touch down". Hopefully fellow judges, Justice Betty King of the Supreme Court of Victoria and Matthew Keogh from the Australian Young Lawyers' Committee, were able to save the audience from Holden.

While not suggesting lawyers need help in the Friday night drinks department, Folklaw is also interested to see if the impact of Russell's advice is felt by the likes of Ryan's Bar or Hemmesphere, which have, up until now, relied upon Friday-night tomfoolery to keep them afloat.