Jennifer James travelled to Chicago and found herself in the GAY Bar at half-past eight on a Friday morning
The Insider was recently in Chicago for the American Bar Association’s Annual Meeting, an event which provides an excellent opportunity to network, make invaluable Transatlantic business contacts, and eat loads of free shrimp. They must be getting some of these babies from just off Three Mile Island as they are getting bigger every year and are now about the size of a lobster on the Atkins diet.
Sweet home Chicago
It is also an unmissable opportunity to get the sixteen hours of New York State Bar Continuing Legal Education points (including four hours of ethics) that I, as a newly-admitted Attorney-at-Law, have to record in each of my first two years. As I was in Chicago with a fellow Brit, also newly-admitted in New York, we got together over the CLE brochure to select the most efficient way of accumulating the requisite hours and leaving ourselves sufficient free time to sightsee and, crucially, to shop. No small matter, this; with the credit crunch still biting down with full effect in America, more than one delegate actively urged us to help the economy by spending as much as we could legitimately carry home and, always mindful of Customs regulations, we were happy to oblige.
New York state of mind
Now, some of our session choices made eminent sense, for example a session upon the ethical considerations of a Judge accepting major campaign donations from an entity which then appears as a litigant before that Judge’s court. Whilst we do not politically campaign for Judicial office in this country, anyone who has practised for any length of time and then sits as a Judge is going to encounter someone who owes them a favour or money, is godparent to their youngest, saved them from anaphylactic shock in a bizarre irradiated-shrimp-related incident or has crossed their path in some other non-neutral way. Finding the balance between avoiding the appearance of bias, and not recusing oneself from a case which would otherwise have to be re-listed at great inconvenience and expense to the participants, is one requiring careful thought and I was intrigued to see the US take on this issue.
However, it became apparent that accommodating the requirements of the New York State Bar and not delivering an entirely undeserved snub to Messrs. Bloomingdales, Saks and Macy, was going to take some blue-sky thinking.
And so it was, dear reader, that at half-past eight on the Friday morning my colleague and I found ourselves settling in for three-and-a-half hours in The Gay Bar. Now, with a title like that you may be assured that, whilst the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender lawyers giving testimony to the ABA were taking matters seriously, they were by no means po-faced about it, and the atmosphere was quite jolly.
Stonewalled
The ABA has only within the past couple of years had LGBT issues in its sights (before this they were not seen as a priority) and those testifying had some interesting points to make, notably one bright, successful young lawyer who has risen through his firm and is now a serious Government player. He canvassed views about bringing same-sex partners to office events, his own view being that, especially in times of dire economic straits, if the firm’s clients would genuinely be outfaced by such a presence, who is he to risk revenues that keep many of his firm’s associates and support staff gainfully employed just to make a political statement?
Mind you, the thought occurred to my colleague and me that, once the economy stabilises, lawyers in his position may well tell their firms that they won’t work for homophobes (or racists, or sexists) any more and then we shall see who blinks first.
No photos please
There was an ABA Staff photographer present (there often is at such events) and my colleague and I suddenly realised that we were on candid camera. We were somewhat chagrined at this, and before Pete Tatchell pickets my sock drawer may I just point out it was half past eight and we had grabbed a bagel and smoothie on the way in. I don’t mind being photographed at an LGBT event, I do mind being pictured in the act of grazing, which is yet another thing I have in common with Catherine Zeta Jones.
Allegations of sleaze
Why The Gay Bar makes me think of Peter Mandelson I know not, but I gather from the Mirror’s website that yesterday he revived his feud with George Osborne by accusing him of political "cross-dressing". Osborne said that the Conservatives have replaced Labour as the party of fairness, to which Mandelson said: "I think my old friend George Osborne is involved in a bit of political cross-dressing here and I don't think it's going to fool anyone."
You may remember that it is a year since animosity brewed between the pair over a holiday in Corfu, during which Osborne claimed that Mandelson had "dripped poison" against Gordon Brown over dinner, to which Mandelson retaliated by revealing Osborne's links to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska.
Allegations by Damian McBride in an e-mail on 13 January 2009 to Derek Draper (Mandelson’s creature back in the day even if he has now – pardon the pun – spun out of control) that Osborne took drugs with a prostitute and posed for photographs in blackface makeup, bra, panties and suspender belt make this latest “cross-dressing” dig a little waspish even for old Marmite-face himself. Anxious at the time to distance himself from this and other hilarious yet vile fabricated slurs, Mandy is only too keen to resurrect this one in code. He really deserves a spanking for being such a naughty little peer.
