Thumbing through the latest speech given by an esteemed member of the judiciary last week, Obiter read something so unexpected it almost – though not quite – caused one’s glass of brandy to tilt to a dangerous degree.

In a complete reversal of normal events, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury (pictured), had seen fit to quote the humble Gazette instead of the Gazette quoting his lordship.

In a speech about the social status of lawyers, he said: ‘Lawyers may not be the most popular of professionals in all quarters. That is certainly the view expressed in a recent article by Jonathan Rayner in the Law Society Gazette, entitled ‘Why are lawyers so unpopular with the public?’ [Rayner] said this, "… there was the time I introduced an old mate of mine to my partner, a solicitor. We had known one another for years and much of his income, as it happened, derived from work I was putting his way. That didn't stop him regaling her for the next half an hour with an account of why he loathed lawyers… How did lawyers get it so very, very wrong?"’

After quickly glancing up to ensure the ceiling was still above one’s feet, and not below, in this new topsy-turvy world, Obiter read on as Neuberger continued: ‘I don’t intend to try to discuss the correctness of that analysis or to answer that question… [but] whatever they have been getting wrong, lawyers have apparently been getting it wrong for quite some time.

‘Around the second century AD, Apulieus, having referred to lawyers as "cattle of the courtroom", then expressed the view that they were no more than "vultures in togas". While Ammianus Marcellinus, two centuries later, took the view that lawyers were "a greedy and debased lot, who conspired with judges to rob the people of justice".’

Though surely even the fiercest detractors of lawyers and the judiciary must concede that they do have impeccable reading habits. See the Gazette blogs.