The Force requires balance, so pay tribute to those who offset the good in law and restored equilibrium, by being pillocks.

Mice were the pillocks at BLM. At least until they passed the baton to a mischievous staffer whose shredding antics got her old colleagues searching through the bins when she left in a huff. Then BLM managers took up the job when they made 300 staff share a toilet

A bottom-feeding firm used the Grenfell Tower tragedy as a money-making opportunity, as did two Leigh Day paralegals who were forced to resign for their mercenary flyposting operation.

    "Wait! That's my dignity and it's marked 'Do Not Resuscitate.'" 

A legal recruiter fat-shamed on the radio, but someone was listening. And a sticky-fingered Norton Rose Fulbright secretary changed her name to join a new firm, but someone was watching. Among all the bad behaviour, the lawyer who humiliated a partner for being old was particularly pitiful. Much more impressive was the giant, £500,000 fine levied on Locke Lorde for failing to keep tabs on an allegedly wayward partner. He was arrested at Birmingham airport.

The stinkiest public relations strategy arrived courtesy of Your Lawyers, which threatened to sue its own clients for leaving it poor reviews. Other notable PR hot potatoes included Squire Patton Boggs' “blood money” Sudan work, and the news that Howard Kennedy had discriminated against a partner with cancer. Also not a good look: the Allen & Overy office which hospitalised an associate with exhaustion. But at least no-one spray-painted a swear on its office.

However, at least one client was also a giant prat. Deutsche Bank piled the pressure on junior solicitors by refusing to pay for NQ and trainee work. Although perhaps the biggest prat was a firm.

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