Before it became a bombed out short target, Slater & Gordon was a titan of the Victorian labour movement. It still runs its share of class action and workers’ compensation cases, putting a new generation of Labor lawyers through their paces before their inevitable preselections (a path most gloriously trod by future prime minister Julia Gillard in the 1990s, not counting some bother with a union slush fund she didn’t know she was setting up).

Slaters is now majority owned by American hedge fund Anchorage Capital, which swooped in after the law firm’s implosion in 2016. But it retains many links to its historic roots, including through its chairman James MacKenzie, whose impeccable Labor connections are evidenced by his continued chairing of Daniel Andrews′ politically sensitive Suburban Rail Loop project.