Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Linklaters have followed swift on the heels of Clifford Chance in releasing their 2008-09 financial results. Revenue at Freshfields was £1.29bn for the year and profit per equity partner came in at a solid £1.44m. It is understood that turnover was significantly enhanced by exchange rates with nearly 60 per cent of the firm’s revenue in euros or dollars. Handy. Linklaters just pipped Freshfields’ revenue though at £1.3bn but slipped behind on PEP with a 9.6 per cent drop over last year to £1.3m.

So partners still doing pretty well despite the economic conditions. Not in the next case though. A former partner at Latham & Watkins has been sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay a $10,000 (£6,000) fine and $350,000 (£210,000) in restitution to Latham for defrauding both clients and his own firm. Samuel Fishman, an M&A specialist in the US firm’s New York office from 1993 to 2005, pleaded guilty to a single count of mail fraud in March 2008. He faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. One major question hangs unanswered over the story. Why, given the annual take-home of a Latham partner (Latham’s 2007 profits-per-partner was $2.27 million) and the long period of time over which Fishman’s fraud played out, would he risk so much for so little?

No such conundrum over Bernie Madoff’s fraud in which everything was served up in a giant helping of big. Bloomberg notes that he has been sentenced to a prison term six times longer than those given the chief executives of WorldCom Inc. and Enron Corp. and will likely serve his time in a harsher prison than them. Sentenced to 150 years, Madoff will probably be sent to a medium or high-security prison. Even worse for the old swindler, fellow inmates serving life sentences may want “to make a name for themselves” by harming him, a former inmate said.

Further afield Legally India reports that The Lawyers Collective has emerged victorious in its bid to decriminalise homosexuality in the Delhi High Court prompting various observers to suggest amendments to the Kama Sutra. Hoho.

And in Australia surfer, Shane Bevan, who took part in a competition when he was on sick leave from work has had an appeal against his sacking upheld. The Telegraph reports that he took part in Queensland’s Coolum Classic surf competition while he was off work with a bad back in 2007. Not altogether surprisingly, the baggage handling company he worked for found out and promptly fired him. The Industrial Relations Commission initially upheld his sacking, but on appeal ruled that terminating his employment was too harsh and ordered the company to pay compensation. For those lawyers who fancy themselves as the surfing type we wouldn’t recommend bunking off work to do it but we would recommend checking out "Scribblings from the Surf " by celebrated blogger Baby Barista, aka Tim Kevan, who ’swapped life at the bar in London for living by the ebb and flow of the tide in North Devon’.

And after our story this week about pensioners having their coffee morning banned on grounds of health and safety can we just take this opportunity to recommend tea instead; apparently it’s healthier than water .