Three law lecturers feature in RateYourLecturer's top ten lecturers — making law the highest represented subject area for excellent teaching (according to RateYourLecturer's not exactly scientific rating system, of which more later). No other subject has more than one lecturer in the top ten.

So who are these stars?

At number 10 it's Northumbria University's Alistair Bulloch. "Shim1" is a big fan:

At number 7 it's Essex University's Penny Brearey-Horne. For "Zaza1988", Brearey-Horne has it all:

At number 3 it's Northumbria University's Jennifer Stephens. "Notmyrealname8" views Stephens as flawless:

Elsewhere in RateYourLecturer's top 50 there are three further law lecturers: Essex University duo Karen Hulme (39th) and Peter Luther (40th), and Exeter University's Karen McAuliffe (48th).

But do these rankings actually mean anything?

The University and College Union is sceptical, with its head of higher education voicing his concerns about the site's methodology to Times Higher Education: “There is no way of determining if the individual posting comments has a real concern about the standard of their course, the university or the teaching, or just fancy lashing out after getting a poor mark,” he said.

Meanwhile, a test conducted by Olivier Ratle, senior lecturer in organisation studies at the University of the West of England, revealed potential flaws in the site.

“I thought, just for fun, let’s see how rigorous the system is,” said Ratle. “My friends managed to register using different email addresses and fake names, and were successful in rating me very positively.”

Thanks to his pals — one of whom wrote, "He’s just too handsome, can’t really concentrate on what he’s saying," — Ratle became the 4th highest-ranked lecturer on the site.

However, RateYourLecturer founder Michael Bulman — who graduated with a history degree from Northumbria University last year — has attempted to allay concerns by explaining that while it's possible that “one idiot will say something stupid”, comments were constantly reviewed, with most "useful and well thought out".

There is further inspiration on the Desk Safari Tumblr for anyone who's slightly bored at work. We'd be honoured to host some additional contributions.

Reputation management tip: as lawyers participating in a "Desk Safari", stick to high-end creatures associated with virtues such as wisdom and nobility. Owls and eagles work well.

Moral Maze: Pornography and the Internet, featuring "Obscenity Lawyer" Myles Jackman [BBC  Radio 4]

Ex-Man City star to train as a lawyer [Manchester Evening News]

Road rage leads to ridiculous physical fight between lawyer and retired policeman [Jalopnik]

Incredibly glamorous Russian lawyer makes "Carine Patry Hoskins seem more fusty bluestocking than courtroom siren" [Mail Online]

"Secret courts" condemned by Supreme Court deputy president Lord Hope [Huffington Post]

Criminal defence solicitor who allegedly told suspect how to flee country set to face trial [Liverpool Post]

Google's chief legal officer – live Q&A: eight things we learned [The Guardian]

Naked Rambler Stephen Gough jailed for breaching asbo [The Guardian]

Former Linklaters legal services supervisor faces fraud charge [Legal Week]

Classic YouTube: The best Saul Goodman moments [YouTube]

A life in criminology isn't for the faint of heart [The Independent]

Is the rape porn cultural harm argument another rape myth? [Obscenity Lawyer]

BBC bullying is 'very troubling', says Dinah Rose QC [The Guardian]

Below is the cease and desist letter in question, by Richard Trenk, an in-house lawyer for the borough of West Orange. It's addressed to resident Jake Freivald, who runs local information website Westorange.info.

Now, it's safe to say that Trenk didn't expect what happened next. The response is from legal big shot Stephen Kaplitt, formerly of Weil Gotshal and the US State Department, who acted for Freivald pro bono.

The experiment — a legal version, if you will, of the famous Pepsi Challenge (a blind Pepsi v Coke taste test) — was conducted following prompting by Supreme Court President Lord Neuberger amid controversy at the lack of female judges...

After outrage was sparked earlier this year by the promotion of yet more men to the UK Supreme Court's ranks (maintaining its shocking 12:1 male/female ratio), Neuberger was asked by Joshua Rozenberg on Radio 4 whether women justices offered a different insight from men when deciding cases. The country's top judge responded that it would be useful to conduct "a parlour game" to find out.

“What I’d quite like to do — it’s a bit like a parlour game — is to get 20 reasonably good lawyers in a room and present them with 100 judgments — 30 by women and 70 by men — and say ‘right, which were by men and which by women’, because I’d be quite interested to see the result," said Neuberger, adding:

“And of course, even if it was completely random, that wouldn’t prove that women didn’t bring something different. I think that Lady Hale believes they do. And I’m quite prepared to agree that they might, I just am not sure.”

In response, Durham Law School professor Erika Rackley assembled 30 of her students to study 16 Court of Appeal  judgments (half by men, half by women). Anything identifying the gender of the judges was removed from the judgments, which spanned employment, family and criminal law.

Alongside the headline 46% success rate finding, it was discovered that the students were slightly better at spotting a female-authored judgment in the employment and family cases. But their success rate dropped to just 33% for the criminal cases.

Following the experiment, Professor Rackley urged the continuance of efforts towards creating a more diverse judiciary. “No one claims that a judge’s gender will make a difference in all cases. In reality what this experiment tested was the students’ assumptions as to the possible differences between men and women judges, rather than the real differences between them, " she said.

Rackley continued: “The argument for the importance of having a more diverse judiciary is not that we will have women judging one way, and men the other. Rather it is that the insights of both will be fed into the law and lead to better decision-making on all sides.”

The experiment is documented in yesterday's episode of Law in Action.

The show includes an interview with Lady Hale, who describes the judiciary as "judges and lawyers first, and men and women second". Hale also denies being in favour of positive discrimination to remedy the current gender imbalance at the higher echelons of law. But the Supreme Court's only female member says that she agrees with the provision in the Equalities Act which allows a candidate from an underrepresented group to be preferred where they are one of two candidates of equal merit.

The highlights of Legal Aid Question Time, including Lord McNally's refusal to retract comment that some lawyers are being "hysterical" [John Mack Blog]

84-year-old judge sexually harassed his assistant who was fifty years younger, lawsuit claims [Mail Online]

Fighting for human rights in Zimbabwe [BBC World Service]

Mother sues solicitor for £15m over "millions lost" in divorce [The Telegraph]

Legal aid cuts will drive out the best lawyers, Supreme Court president warns [The Guardian]

Neuberger: Cross-examination of witnesses in some cases could be dispensed with to save money in the court system [BBC News]

An interview with the lawyer representing Bin Laden's son-in-law [Vice]

Image by Shoaib M Khan

The dos and don'ts of examination-in-chief [Young Lawyer]

Lawyer "execution": Michael Chudley jailed for murder of solicitor James Ward [The Independent]

Will the "Harvard Law (Just Kidding)" range spawn an Oxbridge spin off? [Twitter]

Harvard Law (Just Kidding)-wear. Is there an Oxbridge one of these? pic.twitter.com/KfjosgMAeo

— Legal Cheek (@legalcheek) June 18, 2013

Porn laws "allow animals and dead people more rights than women" say Mumsnet and campaign groups [Huffington Post]

Olympic champion rower Sophie Hosking to join Freshfields as a trainee [The Telegraph]

Part-time partners: why the legal profession is changing [The Guardian]

According to the survey — by The Tab— just 15% of Cambridge law students suffer depression, with an additional 21% of the belief that "they may be suffering" from the illness, leaving 64% definitely depression free. Only engineers (66% of whom are not depressed) are happier. By contrast, a whopping 60% of English students are depressed (40% diagnosed; 20% of the belief that "they may be suffering" from the illness).

Meanwhile, just 13% of law students have possible eating disorders and 8% insomnia. The average figures are, respectively, 16% and 11%. At the high end, 30% of anthropology students have possible eating disorders, and 18% of English students have insomnia.

However, the news wasn't all good for the legal profession, with law students found to be more prone to anxiety and panic attacks than most. 37% have issues with anxiety (higher than the 35% average) and 13% are troubled by panic attacks (for which the average figure is a fractionally lower 12%). Still that's healthier than the anxiety rate for English students, which stands at 50%. The highest incidence of panic attacks is among history students, at 19%.

Cambridge University has expressed dissatisfaction with the survey — which received 1,749 responses, a figure that equates to 15% of the Cambridge University undergraduate population — describing it as "informal, unscientific and statistically suspect."

However, Cambridge University law student Sebastian Salek had a different take, telling Legal Cheek: "The results could easily be skewed by the fact that people with a history of mental illness are more likely to respond. However, it's pleasing to see that mental illness, which often goes unspoken about, is getting some exposure at a high-pressured environment like Cambridge. It's reassuring that the mental health of Cambridge lawyers is apparently comparably more sound than most, though."

As you can see, Bernadette is a massive fan of house music.

When she isn't DJing, she enjoys nothing better than a good game of baseball.

Bernadette is equally comfortable on the cricket pitch...

...and on, er, "H Factor"...

But she's arguably most at home when deciding who wins the lottery...

...or controlling time itself.

As commander-of-chief of Bernadette Kearns Property Lawyers, Bernadette's responsibilities include gardening...

...and control of the skies above the firm.

Naturally, she holds a head-of-church role too.

Lately, Bernadette has been doing a lot of Maypole dancing...

...which she intersperses with recollections of her memorable World Cup win...

...and tender moments with young admirers.

These go on and on...

As mentioned above, there are 42 of them in total, some better than others. To conclude, here's Bernadette with a traffic light.

Oxford has lowest number of state-educated undergrads [Lawyer2B]

5 reasons why being a lawyer is really not as cool as I thought [Bitter Lawyer]

Is the outrage over Stuart Hall’s 15-month sentence justified? [New Statesman]

The tech company lawyers who stand between you and government snoops [Bloomberg Businessweek]

Better to be safe than sorry [Legal Bizzle on Twitter]

Woman opposite so worried about the low character of fellow passengers that she took her bottle of coke to the toilet.

— Legal Bizzle (@LegalBizzle) June 18, 2013

A McDonald's breakfast, some lectures, then in bed for 7pm: a day in the life of a law student [The Legal Eagle]

Computer expert who injured his index finger sues for £150,000 compensation because he can't send text messages [Mail Online]

Event: The minority lawyers' seminar — career development and social media [Bar Council]

What will you earn? Salary information for the top UK law firms [Lex100]

Barefoot lawyer says Chinese pressure forced him out of NYU [The Guardian]

Stuart Hall jailed for 15 months for sex assaults [BBC News]

The remarks of Judge Anthony Russell QC in the sentencing of Stuart Hall [Judiciary.gov.uk]

Too much information [CourtNewsUK on Twitter]

'Boxer shorts or pants?' defence QC asks her client as he gives evidence. 'Pants,' he says. 'Want to know why?' 'No,' she demurs.

— CourtNewsUK (@CourtNewsUK) June 17, 2013

Man arrested over "Fuck your shitty town" reply to speeding ticket [Jalopnik]

Hot 100 lawyer Tinu Adeshile overcomes fear of heights to climb Ben Nevis [Wandsworth Guardian]

Image by Alan Williams Photography

Rouhani completed a masters in law at Glasgow Caledonian in the 70s having obtained his undergraduate law degree from Tehran University. He then went into politics, before returning to Glasgow Caledonian — ranked 37th in the UK for law in the Guardian's 2014 rankings — to complete a PhD in the late 90s.

Previously there has been confusion about where exactly Rouhani studied, with official state-sponsored biographies claiming that he graduated from Glasgow University. However, Rowhani has since clarified that he was at Glasgow Caledonian, where he was registered under the name "Hassan Feridon".

Judge Royce Taylor's memo in full:

Having issued the memo, which has been doing the rounds in the blogosphere over the weekend, Taylor gave this quote to The Tennessean: "All you have to do is go to church and see what people used to wear — hats, gloves, long dresses — have long been gone away with. But I found that county judges here weren’t holding women to the same standard as men."

Responses from female lawyers in the Tennessee area have been mixed. “How we got off those standards is beyond me,” said one. However, another said she was “slightly offended” by Taylor's words.

Is there no end to fat cat lawyers' hypocrisy? [Daily Mail]

Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng hire his 'n' hers legal teams [The Independent]

Google legal chief: There are some things no one should be able to Google [The Telegraph]

Nick Cohen: Natural justice faces a savage loss of innocence [The Observer]

Solicitor aims to qualify as doctor, aged 74 [Sunday Times]

Twitter's top lawyer "doesn’t give a shit" when the government comes knocking with demands and intimidation [The Verge]

Judges have said they will go back to practising as lawyers because their pensions are to be cut [Law Society Gazette]