1 Lawyers can give legal counsel to fish
Defendants in a court of law don’t always need to be human. In 2010, Swiss lawyer Antoine Goetschel acted in court on behalf of a dead pike, which had “suffered excessively” after an angler took 10 minutes to land the fish when it was snared on his hook (the fisherman was subsequently acquitted). Elsewhere, British environmental lawyer James Thornton has filed lawsuits against governments and corporations on behalf of his only client: planet Earth. His successes include forcing the British government to publish tough new plans to immediately tackle air pollution.
2 Barristers rarely shake hands with each other
And they don’t fist bump either. This aversion to hand contact is a centuries-old legal custom. Its origin myth is hazy: one theory suggests it stems from our swashbuckling, duel-adjacent past when shaking hands was a way for gentlemen to show they weren’t secretly concealing a sword or dagger. Because barristers were supposedly morally superior to ordinary “gentlemen” (ergo the type who would never sneakily carry weapons), handshaking never took off – a tradition that sticks to this day.
