* For anyone more used to seeing Clifford Chance engineering multi jurisdictional takeovers or crafting privatisations, the sight of the firm acting for IVF practitioner Mohamed Taranissi in his legal spat with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) will have come as something of an eye-opener. But, of course, what was at stake was an issue of regulation, one of the firm's strongest areas. Equally striking about the case was the way the HFEA – as a top regulatory body in a sensitive field – was caught with its pants comprehensively down (as they tend not to say in the human fertilisation business) over their own rules and regulations. Clearly, in a matter of this importance you can’t go wrong in choosing one of the City’s elite firms to act for you. Meanwhile it allowed a triumphant Michael Smyth (Times Law Panel member and CC’s head of public policy) to sound off enthusiastically about the scale of the victory. “It's highly unusual in my experience for a regulator with statutory backing more or less to concede your entire case at the door of the court. Still more for it to admit that its evidence was inadequate and that is actions in seeking the warrants was unlawful,” he said. Game, set and match to Clifford Chance - total humiliation for the other side then.

* Spare a thought for the staff at Irwin Mitchell in Sheffield who found themselves clearing mud and water out of their new(ish) offices after being hit by the severe floods in the north of England earlier this week. Around 20 per cent of the firm’s premises were affected after the River Don burst its banks but the firm, which has farmed out some staff to other offices, expects everything to be back to normal by the beginning of next week.

* Helen Newman, Kilpatrick Stockton’s head of international IP, is moving to Olswang along with four junior lawyers. Her move comes just weeks after Olswang snared another high-profile IP name in Nigel Swycher, a former Slaughter and May partner, who joined in March. Back at Kilpatrick, New York-based IP partner Christopher Woods will take over control of the international IP group.

* A Welsh law firm has been ordered to repay £160,000 to miners it represented in claims for respiratory disease and vibration white finger, the Solicitors Regulation Authority said today. Gabb & Co solicitors, based in Abergavenny and Crickhowell, south Wales, deducted the money from miners’ damages and paid it to a claims company instead. The firm agreed to pay back the money following a hearing at the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. A partner in the firm, Glyn Maddocks, also admitted five breaches of professional rules and was fined £15,000, and ordered to pay costs estimated to be £60,000. Antony Townsend, chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, said: “Our successful prosecution sends a message that we are determined to see these cases through in the interests of miners. It is the third successful prosecution we have brought and there are at least 14 more to come, many of them involving much larger sums.”

* New offices, fantastic new location and everything bright and new and sparkly about it – even down to a new set of markets and clients. Yes, everything seems to be going well for LG (the-firm-formerly-known-as Lawrence Graham) now that it has decamped south of the river. In what is something of a coup, the firm advised Grant Thornton Corporate Finance and brokers Oriel Securities and Elara Capital on the £55 million AIM float by The Indian Film Company – a new film fund backed by Indian media mogul Raghav Bahl. LG is focusing on the Indian market these days - and with widespread expectations that the sub-continent is on the verge of opening up, it look like a sensible strategy

* White and Case has hired another three lawyers to its growing London banking and capital markets group. Clare Calver, an associate at Allen & Overy, joins as a partner while Massimo Galli, counsel at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and former Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft special counsel Jonathan Weinberg both join as counsel.

* Trowers & Hamlins was the surprise winner at Tuesday night's Lawyer Awards at The Grovenor House Hotel on Park Lane, winning law firm of the year. It meant a lot, judging from the ecstatic fist-pumping and joyous hugs - or was that merely relief that their £2,000-a-table hadn't gone to waste? Presumably the Trowers team partied well into the night, given that by lunch time the next day the firm's website still made no mention of the triumph. Bless. The rest of the night went by in a blur of strobe lights and blaring 80s standards: some 28,000 awards were handed out; Marcus Brigstocke, the Radio 4 host and professional TV panel show guest, did a capable job of speeding things along; and Roll on Friday founder Matthew Rhodes distinguished himself in a room of identically-dresssed middle-aged men in a marvellous pair of tartan trousers. The Water Cooler can't resist a shameless shout-out for One Essex Court's Laurence Rabinowitz, QC, a member of the Times Law Panel, who took home barrister of the year, confirmation that he is one of the commercial bar's hottest properties. Other than that, you'll have to read the full list of winners and nominees yourself, here.

* Might this be his last appointment as Lord Chancellor? Lord Falconer has announced that David Hertzell, an insurance expert and two-time managing partner of Davies Arnold Cooper, has been appointed a Law Commissioner responsible for commercial and common law projects. Hertznell, who qualified at DAC in 1983 and made partner in 1989 before becoming managing partner from 1992-1996 and 1999-2006, will serve five years in the post.

* Linklaters has appointed Michael Kent as the new global head of its financial markets group, with effect from 1 November 2007. A partner at the firm since 1999, Kent takes over from Paul Nelson, who founded the group 15 years ago and has led it ever since. Nelson continues in the practice but will instead focus on "clients and new product development", a spokesman said.

* Bernard Sheridan, the human rights and media lawyer who founded London firm Sheridans, has died aged 80. Click here for The Times obituary.

* International human rights cases are to be broadcast online thanks to funding from the Irish Government, it emerged today. Public hearings from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will be shown via webcast from this week. In launching the project, the court’s President Jean-Paul Costa described the move as a significant step forward in making the court’s activities both more visible and accessible. The first hearing to be broadcast on the court’s internet site - www.echr.coe.int - will be held at 9am on Thursday and the webcast will be made available from 2.30pm that day. Mr Costa said the move would “bring the ECHR closer to the ordinary citizens whom it is intended to serve and protect.”

* The US judge who sued his drycleaners for $54 million over a missing pair of trousers has lost his case. Another (perhaps more sensible) judge decided that the owners of Custom Cleaners did not breach consumer protection laws by failing to live up to Roy Pearson’s expectations of their “Satisfaction Guaranteed” window sign. Judge Pearson, an expert in administrative law, was ordered to pay $1,000 in court costs. A motion to recover the tens of thousands of dollars the drycleaners have spent on legal fees will be considered later.

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