When prominent Tanzanian legal counsel, Fatma Karume, argued a recent case in the high court of Tanzania, she could not have anticipated the full outcome. Sure, she lost the case, but this is something all lawyers must assume may happen at any time and in any case. But how could she have known she would also raise the anger of her court opponents and the presiding judge? Citing argument by opposing counsel that her argument had been rude and ‘inappropriate’, the judge decided to suspend Karume – immediate past president of the Tanganyika Law Society – from practice. He also ordered the registrar of the high court to refer a ‘professional misconduct matter’ to the advocate’s disciplinary committee.