Ever heard of the Philadelphia lawyer? Apparently, it is a term used to describe a shrewd lawyer, one who is adept at exploiting legal technicalities. The term Philadelphia lawyer can have either positive or negative connotations depending on whether it’s being applied to a lawyer who’s for or against us. The term can also be applied to a person, not necessarily a lawyer, who is good at manipulating and obfuscating matters. An example of its use is found in Bill Tarrant’s ‘Hunting the Russian Boar’, Field & Stream (Los Angeles), April 1998:

Then Willie Lee nailed me those many years ago. With a woman’s way she said to Bob, ‘Bob, this man’s been here three days and he’s complimented my cooking more than you have in thirty years of marriage.’

A death pall lay over the burdened table. Willie Lee had pierced both of us with two horns of the same bull. I gulped and floundered – helpless to assist my wounded friend — but Bob never missed a spoonful as he said, ‘I’ve been too busy eatin’.’

No Philadelphia lawyer ever saved (himself and) the condemned with so few words, so coolly and ably stated. I was in Bob’s debt and learned that moment to keep my compliments to a peck and not a bushel.

 

The Chinese think nothing of it during Chinese New Year, but kumquats on a Christmas tree? Apparently, London firm Collyer-Bristow’s alternative Christmas tree is a four-foot ceramic tree, featuring, ‘myriads of delicate cherubs, doves and, apparently, kumquats supervised by the traditional angel (or rather two of them)’. We are not sure if the recession has shrunk the size of the more traditional spiced orange or if the bid was to create a fusion tree with East-West elements.

 

The first fully online law school in the United States has produced its first graduating batch of students, a humble cohort of 10.

Concord is the first law school in the United States that conducts all its courses over the Internet instead of in bricks-and-mortar classrooms. Concord now has more than 1,000 students around the country.

The next test for the graduating class is the February 2003 Bar Examination in California. California allows graduates of non-ABA accredited law schools to take the examination. For the Concord students who pass the Bar, the innovative school will have punched their tickets into the legal profession.

Overheard from a male member of the Family Practice Committee: ‘Nope, I’m not taking a jab for it. But I am on The Pill’. Lest members start tracking down this remarkably versatile chap by a process of elimination, Obiter had better clarify that the intrepid member in question was actually referring to chicken-pox medication.