Those looking for a message to be drawn from the death of Matthew Courtney, the young Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer assistant who died on 9 February this year, will struggle to extrapolate much from this week’s inquest.

What the hearing in Southwark Coroner’s Court on Tuesday (14 May) did not offer was much support for suggestions that Freshfields was culpable for the 27-year-old’s death, either through neglect or overwork.