After Hugo Chavez died last week, comedian Stephen Grant tweeted this gag about the former Venezuelan President: "In honour of the passing of Hugo Chavez, I have had his initials inscribed onto my bathroom taps."
It did well, getting loads of retweets. In fact, it did so well that its author was soon forgotten as people began tweeting variants of the gag without reference to Grant. One of these people was top media lawyer Mark Stephens, who an annoyed Grant has singled out for criticism in a Storify he created called "A short biography of a particular twitter joke".
Despite being assisted by well-known lawyer-tweeter 'Loveandgarbage' in the compilation of events following his joke, one of the conclusions Grant draws from the affair is that "You can't trust the legal profession, eh 
".
This morning, Stephens, who didn't know who the originator of the joke was and has since tweeted an acknowledgement, hit back, telling Legal Cheek: "I tell jokes down the pub all the time, but don't think I've ever credited them before telling them. Have you?" He added that he has re-arranged the inscriptions on his taps overnight "from Hugo Chavez to Chris Huhne".
Since then, Twitter Joke Trial Lawyer David Allen Green has joined the wider debate over tweet theft, writing on Twitter: "Some lawyers/law firms 'borrow' my legal tweets without attribution. Now, that *is* desperate 
".
If you get a tweet nicked by one of the legal Twitterati big wigs, you know where to turn: tips@legalcheek.com.