Marathon men

Today's City lawyers seem to like nothing more than a bit of charity work - particularly if it involves a fun task in an exotic location. But with so many people growing moustaches, jumping out of planes and rowing across oceans to raise funds - often all at once - bog-standard marathon-running seems a little passe these days.

So hats off to Jones Day for coming up with an event that sounds suitably torturous to win the hearts, minds and money of even the most
prudent of clients.

The firm has assembled a crack team of eight lawyers - including European capital markets chief Giles Elliott and corporate partner John Phillips - to run two marathons in a week. The team is hoping to raise £100,000 for cancer research by completing a combined total of 52 miles in Paris and London in April.

Furthermore, the team will be minimising their carbon footprint by cycling the 300 miles between the two cities (possibly using a pedalo to cross the Channel).

Hopefully their clients don't have anything too complicated planned for them the following week.