Corporate lawyers like to cultivate a reputation for ruthlessness, often taking the scalps of hapless investment bankers as trophies after emerging victorious from the latest hostile takeover.

In the days before video-phones, one country-loving Ashurst partner demonstrated his own bloodthirsty streak in the middle of a conference call.

While raising chickens at his rural residence, the partner decided to put one suffering bird out of its misery, waiting for his wife and young family to leave the house before readying himself for the grisly deed.

However, with the prearranged conference call dragging on and the return of his family imminent, the partner simply placed the phone on the table, grabbed an axe and strode off to the garden, lop-ping the bird's head off before resuming the call – his clients none the wiser.

Presumably some litigators have felt like doing the same when up before the beak.