***** Law Pun of the Year Award *****

@AusLawResearch together with @of_cald is thrilled to announce the winner of the inaugural LPoY Award for 2020.

This preeminent prize in the art form of legal pun has this year been judged by @lesleyhitchens

*drum roll*

The judging notes are as follows:

"Having spent several anguishing months/days/hours/moments I have now reached my decision on the Law Pun of the Year award."

"I was pleased to see the number of entries, diversity of law fields covered, and diversity of entrants from law students to distinguished senior counsel. Clearly Covid lent itself to a certain well-known equitable maxim."

" I appreciated also the jokes, memes, and cute pictures of dogs. As I have so frequently observed as a dean, a law degree offers up many career pathways, and this competition provided further evidence of this."

**you note that, yes, I am dragging this out...***

"So, despite tough competition I have decided that the winner must clearly be Stephen McDonald @steve_mcdee for his pun 'Thoms, Actually'. I note that this was nominated by a number of people."

"Stephen McDonald @steve_mcdee provided a number of offerings, all of which were of a high standard, but 'Thoms, Actually' was outstanding. Almost a pun within a pun, or a pun upon a pun. Like a fine wine, the humour was subtle, with a slow build towards a rich finish."

Check out the original tweet here:

https://twitter.com/steve_mcdee/status/1230431704487038976

@lesleyhitchens also notes that "I think Honourable Mention should be given to Vikram Paralkar @VikramParalkar for his IP connected pun. " - though there were doubts about eligibility given 'he is not a lawyer and based in the US'

So there you have it:

'Thoms, Actually'

Officially the funniest (law) thing on twitter this year - at least according to #auslaw #lawtwitter

Don't forget to vote in the People's Choice Award!!

Check out this thread for the nominees and poll: https://twitter.com/AusLawResearch/status/1300967000701718531

And of course, please check out the shortlists for the other (less sparkly but more serious awards): https://cald.asn.au/blog/2020/09/02/australian-legal-research-awards-shortlisted-applicants/