If the nation’s courts are lions’ dens, then the lawyers are the big cats, eternally fighting over carcasses. That includes the court’s best one-liners, as well as its more substantive findings.

Speaking on ABC radio the morning after his client Ten Network secured a considerable victory on the facts (if not on the reasonableness or basic competence of its journalism), media lawyer Justin Quill was asked a question that referenced Justice Michael Lee’s quip that Bruce Lehrmann had, “having escaped the lion’s den … made the mistake of going back for his hat”.