The Law Society brought the might of celebrity behind its legal aid publicity campaign last week, receiving a ringing endorsement from actress Joanna Lumley (Lumley noted that without legal aid, cases like the gurkha justice campaign could never have been fought), and gathering a host of gurkhas for a photo opportunity outside the Royal Courts of Justice. All good stuff for pushing access to justice issues into the public consciousness. But did Obiter detect a whiff of scepticism from the other side of the profession at this populist approach? After all, the bar may not have been best pleased with some of the legal aid proposals put forward by the Law Society this week, which, among other things, would cap the amount individuals could earn for legal aid work at £250,000 annually (effectively putting an end to what the press like to dub the ‘million pound’ legal aid barrister). The Chancery Lane publicity campaign was, of course, called ‘Sound off for Justice’. So was there a hidden message in this remark made by the bar’s Stephen Cobb QC when he published the Bar Council’s own legal aid proposals this week? He said: ‘The Bar Council wanted to look very closely at the detail of the green paper before commenting. This is a principled, evidence-base response. We have not sounded off.’ An interesting choice of phrase.