OK, here's the story going the rounds in America and all over the internet. A lawyer in Charlotte, North Carolina, bought a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against fire. A month later, after smoking all the cigars, he filed a claim against the insurance company, claiming that the cigars had been destroyed "in a series of small fires". Naturally, the insurance company refused to pay, arguing that he had consumed the cigars in the normal way. The lawyer sued and won. The judge concluded that, on the wording of the policy, the insurance company was liable - it had failed to limit its liability by defining what would amount to an "unacceptable fire".
The company, rather than incur the costs of appeal, paid up $15,000, whereupon it reported the lawyer to the police. He was arrested and subsequently convicted on 24 counts of arson - intentionally burning insured property - and sentenced to two years' imprisonment and a fine. "This is a true story," the report goes on, "and was the first-place winner in the recent Criminal Lawyers Award Contest."
Very funny, I thought; but hang on, why do I already know it? If it won a "recent" contest, how come I remember it from way back? Anyway, what is this "Criminal Lawyers Award Contest"? On to the net I went, to discover very little, except that every time I tried to get information about this alleged contest or its organisers, I got a form to fill in about some legal services outfit. Conclusion: the whole thing is made up, and anyway, I don't think it's legally possible, on several grounds. But I bet it will keep doing the rounds, just because the report says "this is a true story". Moral: not every legal anecdote that comes from America is the truth, even if it is headed "Only in America".
· From time to time, I feel sorry for the bar. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I am man enough to admit it. The profession genuinely believes that it is misunderstood by the public and misinterpreted, if not caricatured, by the media. It gets particularly annoyed at its greedy fat-cat image, when in reality, it claims (with some justification, but not as much as it thinks it has), most barristers work very hard for relatively modest earnings.
But this week, the bar council issued an angry press release which was, I believe, fully justified. A couple of weeks ago, you may have read a news story, which appeared in most newspapers, about a statistical survey showing how the earnings for various trades and professions had risen over the past decade. According to the story, based on a press release by the Halifax bank, barristers were second in the league table of fast-rising earners; only professional sportspersons had incomes which had grown faster. Nice story, and one that confirms the fat-cat image - only the allegedly statistical fact was a complete nonsense. The sample on which the Halifax's figure was reached, taken from a survey by the office for national statistics, was based on eight - I repeat, eight - barristers out of a survey of nearly 200,000 people.
Statistically, this is utterly invalid. The bar accuses the Halifax of knowing that the figure for barristers' growth of earnings was untenable - the statistics office had specifically told them so - but of using it anyway for the sake of a better story. From now on, I will disbelieve everything the Halifax tells me about house prices.
· I'm sure you're anxious to know what happened to Valerie Faure, the French lawyer I wrote about in my last column, who was accused of bringing her profession into disrepute on the grounds that she was also a street musician (an accordionist accompanying her violinist husband) who accepted money from satisfied listeners. Last week she appeared before the Bergerac bar's disciplinary committee, and scored a triumph, or possibly, depending on which way you look at it, threw away her legal career. She arrived at the hearing followed by her street-musician friends and demanded, through the lawyer representing her, that she be given the right to perform a reconstruction of her musical act. No, ruled the disciplinary tribunal's president.
Disregarding the refusal, Maître Faure accused her accusers of abusing their powers and violating her freedom of expression, then proceeded - wearing her advocate's robes - to give what one paper described as a boisterous concert. The music was much appreciated by the audience but not, it seems, by the disciplinary committee, who walked out. It will be giving its decision next month.