Unfortunately for the boys, Folklaw has beaten them to it and is now proud to showcase this rare office rugby jersey, framed and mounted alongside the signatures of team Allens Arthur Robinson (pictured).

A perfect addition to the wall of any games or bar room, this special one-off treasure captures the team of lawyers who, we are led to believe, will play a leading role in the firm’s special duties over the month ahead.

Beautifully entitled “Official Law Firm of the Rugby World Cup 2003” this must-have piece of history would no doubt make a great birthday present for the lawyer hubby who’s simply got everything. Ladies, imagine the look on the face of your beloved as he gazes longingly at the names of the very Australians responsible for making 2003’s biggest sporting event legally possible. It certainly got the thumbs up from young Corey Knight of Brisbane recently. Not only have Team Allens cured all of the 20-year-old’s headaches surrounding what to get his mates for Christmas this year, the firm also gave him two tickets for this weekend’s World Cup opener.

But like those representing Team Allens, whose names are now carved into legal sporting lore within that stunning wooden frame, would well admit, the limelight doesn’t come easy.

Corey won the tickets after being randomly selected from a portion of 60,000 contestants to beat the computer in Allens’ online drop-kick competition.

Many of those on the winners list were later discovered to be lawyers from other firms. Such effort to find the spare time to conquer this challenge, we believe, must be heartily applauded in light of exhausting workloads they keep telling us about.

LIVin’ it up North

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We don’t know if this is a sign of things to come, but it certainly was strange to see the Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) bobbing up in the unseasonal clime of Far North Queensland’s press.

Maybe Bill O’Shea and the boys are planning to take over the whole nation. If that’s the case, they certainly got things off to a roaring start last week after the LIV was quoted extensively throughout a special on legal rights in the Cairns Post.

The title of the newspaper may be a red herring, but we’re still not convinced its readership would get much from the line: “Clients who believe they have been overcharged by a lawyer can contact the Law Institute of Victoria’s department of Professional Standards.”

For the few banana benders somehow unfamiliar with Victorian legal guilds, a direct phone number and web link was kindly included as well.

We know the more aptly located Queensland Law Society has copped a bit of ribbing over its complaints handling of late, but referring readers to an interstate body more than 4,000 kilometres away doesn’t say much for their redemptive efforts now, does it?

And we thought Queenslanders were meant to be the most fiercely parochial people in Australia.

Ball and chain freedom

We simply couldn’t let this edition of Folklaw slip by without making mention of the hottest legal marriage in the history of mankind.

Congratulations to Rohan McDonald, from Acuiti, who last week tied the knot with the PM’s daughter and G+T lawyer Melanie Howard.

And our gushing joy continued to overflow unbridled later on, when it was confirmed that the pair had been granted time off from their arduous law firm jobs to honeymoon.

Short on gain, long on pain

Little angry men are often accused for suffering from ‘short man’s syndrome’ — an affliction that supposedly convinces one they need to be heard to be seen.

But what about a little woman practising in a man’s domain? Things couldn’t have been great for 154cm Brisbane barrister Sara Vornamen, who recently revealed she underwent height surgery last year. In her book God made me Small, Surgery made me Tall, Vornamen tells of the physical and financial pain of travelling to Russia last year and forking out $40,000 for a leg-lengthening procedure.

Now 8cm better off, Vornamen’s experiences proved the catalyst for an interesting tirade on “shortism” by Queensland AMA president Ingrid Tall.

The appropriately named doctor told AAP that evidence existed showing that short people were indirectly discriminated against and that such drastic actions were not the answer.

“When you look at the fight against discrimination against women and homosexuals and coloured people, I think to become aware of discrimination is the first step in the process of eliminating it,” she said.