Tunnel vision ; ; ;Obiter has just returned from the east coast of the US, where the irony about the legal profession is that while Americans have raised (or lowered) lawyer-bashing to an art form, lawyers there enjoy more success than they do in any other country on earth.

At a time when every broadcasting company was filling its reports on the stymied US elections with lines like the only people smiling today in Florida are the lawyers, one New York practice was happy to raise its public profile as high as possible.

Manhattan law firm Wilens & Baker appears to be a general practice that specialises in just about everything.

To promote its wide fields of expertise, the firm has gone to the massest of mass markets by taking out a series of advertisements on the infamous New York Subway.

Weary strap-hangers are currently being exhorted to ring freephone numbers such as 1-800-bankrupt/immigration/divorce and yes, even 1-800-innocent.

All the numbers take the dialers straight through to the firms call handlers.

And as a marketing wheeze it seems to have done the trick, as none other than the venerable New York Times devoted much ink to the story.

So come on you magic circle firms get the designers working on something clever for Bank Underground station.