Daily Diary

Life swap

Posted 5/10/2006 by legalweekblogs.com SU

You might think that the trained armies of permanently on-message thought-police patrolling the corridors of City firms would be impervious to the sort of communications breakdowns that routinely plague cack-handed legal hacks.

Not so, however, as The Diary learned at the bash thrown by the Herbert Smith real estate team at Soho’s trendy Kingly Club earlier this week (3 October).

Much to the joy of technophiles at the firm, key personnel were recently issued with upgrades to their always-indispensable BlackBerries, allowing clients to reach relationship partners at even more inconvenient hours with even more urgent queries about mitigating the risk of changing the printer cartridge or the regulatory implications of wearing a patterned tie with a striped shirt.

However, one unfortunate crossing of wires meant the number of the firm’s famed playboy communications guru Tom Rose was mistakenly swapped with that of a partner for 24 drama-packed hours.

“I’m in trouble because [the unnamed partner] got all these calls from my friends asking why I wasn’t in the pub,” confided the boy Rose. “But I didn’t get any calls from a single client, so I guess he is in trouble too.”