Ever get tired of working on a matter that has no apparent end? How would you feel if after 30 years of effort you were told to head back to the drawing board.

That seems to be the message from the European Court of Justice to in-house corporate lawyers, who have been trying to overturn a 1982 ruling that said attorney-client privilege applies in EU cases only to communications with lawyers at outside law firms, not with the general counsel down the hall. WSJ

Wasn’t it Einstein who said: “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

The charming Piers Morgan had a brush with the law this week. Which he brushed off with a cracking tabloid-esq witticism.

Britain’s Got Talent judge Piers Morgan has said he deserved a “red buzzer from the courts” after being fined for speeding in Brighton. BBC

In the US, employees of financial regulator the SEC were clearly so frustrated by the financial crisis they diverted their attention to watching porn instead of bankers. Emerging from the aftermath, it appears most of them have kept their jobs, oh, and one of the worst offenders was a lawyer:

Washington Post: A senior attorney at SEC headquarters in Washington admitted he sometimes spent as much as eight hours viewing pornography from his office computer, according to the report. The attorney’s computer ran out of space for the downloaded images, so he started storing them on CDs and DVDs that he stored in his office.

Here’s a follow up to a story from last week in which a patient lost a testicle during an operation because the surgeon cut it off by mistake. We had hoped some angry litigator would volunteer to tear the doctor a new one. Legally speaking. No such luck so far as we are aware but thankfully, for 50% of the population at least, the doctor has been struck off:

Testicle removal blunder surgeon struck off – A surgeon who cut off a patient’s testicle by mistake has been struck off the medical register.

In hearing the case the GMC panel proved itself a master of understatement (bearing in mind this particular doctor also liked to get high on his patients’ supply):

In its ruling, the panel stated: “The panel is of the opinion that a period of conditional registration would not adequately reflect the serious nature of Dr Al Hourani’s misconduct.” BBC

As noted above, some things deserve serious consequences but we weren’t sure if the next one really qualified:

A 44-year-old man was charged with battery April 10 after his girlfriend told police he had sealed off one nostril and blown the contents of the other nostril all over her. NWF Daily News

And although not found guilty of an offence, this is still offensive:

A MAN has been cleared on a charge of weighing his penis on the fruit and veg scales in an Edinburgh store. The 31-year-old woman shop assistant was shocked rigid when she saw a penis slapped on the vegetable scales; the two giggling men crowding the food scales with open trousers said it was a penis and added for good measure they were weighing it. Anorak

But the offending object could not be seen on CCTV so the verdict was not guilty. Penultimately; a ridiculous lawsuit:

Man Not Gay Enough For Sex Shop Sues (Anorak)

From California amazingly enough. Suzie’s Adult Superstore were ahppy enough for Michael Beaton to work as a security guard but he didn’t quite cut it on the shop floor.

And finally, did you take a gap year before immersing yourself in a legal career? Are you one of these? Do you at least recognise them?