Daily Diary

Continental lift

Posted 28/03/2008 by The Daily Diary

The Diary dropped in a couple of major firms on its recent networking jaunt to sunny Duesseldorf, where Freshfields Funhouse Deringer and Sherman & Sterling were among the firms on your correspondent’s itinerary.

Visiting those two was somewhat akin to taking a step back in time, with the offices of both firms decked out with some rather archaic equipment – those paternoster lifts that loop round continuously and bring death to any passengers insufficiently nimble enough to hop off in time.

According to the omniscient font of knowledge that is Wikipedia, the term ‘paternoster’ derives from a rather far-fetched parallel between the loop of the elevator and a string of rosary beads, with ‘pater noster’ being the first two words (in Latin) of the Lord’s Prayer. So not because you take your life in your hands each time you use one, then.

Anyway, feel free to insert your own punch-line here about revolving doors, Freshfields’ and Shearman’s German practices and partners praying on their way to the exits.