Review of the legal year / Juristische Anekdoten des Jahres

David Pannick is an academic one of whose specialities is collecting legal trivia. Anyone writing an after-dinner speech for lawyers might profit from his writings. Today’s Times Online (free registration) has his round-up of the legal year. Here he reports inter alia that Saddam Hussein wants to be represented by a British Queen’s Counsel and legal team.

bq. Judge of the Year was Justice Dean Mildren, of the Northern Territory Supreme Court in Australia, who said he was “absolutely staggered” that the serial burglar appearing in his court had previously been granted bail. He demanded to know: “Who is the idiot who did that?” Judge Mildren was later informed that the judge responsible was Judge Mildren.

There are references to non-English-speaking countries too:

bq. The Italian Supreme Court upheld a fine of €300 on a Trieste man for using offensive language by telling a parking warden: “You are nobody.”

Then there’s the legal cartoon of the year, by Leo Cullum in The New Yorker:

bq. One attorney tells another: “My client got twenty years, yet he paid me in full. It just shows the system works.”

You can order printouts of New Yorker legal and other cartoons here, at www.cartoonbank.com.

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