Lawyer Harris driven to distraction

Obiter has often complained - with some justification - about the nonsense that regularly issues from law firms' marketing departments and their external PR advisers.

But clearly we don't realise just how lucky we are.

Last week, we received a ton of blurb and pictures from pukka PR company Golin/Harris about the new advertising campaign for the Vauxhall Vectra.

The legal link? 'The premise of the advert is that the Vectra is put on trial to assess whether it is a genuinely good car.

Hollywood actor Ed Harris [pictured filming] plays the lawyer representing the car,' we were told sombrely (and it's just as well, because you wouldn't actually guess any of this from seeing the advert).

Even less plausible is a quote from Mr Harris's agent, who said the reason his client became involved 'is that he loved the scripts and thought it was an incredibly fresh idea'.

Nothing to do with the piles of cash presumably shoved his way, we're sure.

So law firm PRs - all is forgiven.