I noticed the full page advert on the front inside cover of last month’s counsel magazine and raised an eyebrow. It was a ‘desperately seeking pupillage’ advert from an individual. Determined, I thought. Creative. And pretty cringeworthy. But the boundless entertainment that Counsel provides no doubt drew me onwards and I passed over it without much more thought.

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But it seems it has caused the raising of more important eyebrows than mine because a whole page is devoted to this little whoopsy in this month’s Counsel. The Bar Standards Board has issued a statement about why such adverts are ‘out of line’ with the BSB’s pupillage advertising requirements’ on equal opportunities grounds. I take their point which is made also in a lengthy letter from a disgruntled pupillage seeker (who has rather ironically managed by dint of this letter’s publication to demonstrate his own articulacy and dogged determination and hence obtain a free advert for his own suitability for an offer of pupillage) – all pupillages must be advertised and all applications must go through the advertised route.

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But what I really want to know is how on earth this one slipped through the net? In fact I know how this slipped through the net, although the Editorial Board of Counsel is made up of members of the Bar, no doubt advertising and the revenue generated from it are very much the domain of Lexis, the commercial enterprise who are contracted to publish this magazine and to make it viable and presumably profitable. No doubt questions of the regulation of pupillages were not at the forefront of the advertising bods at Lexis.

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So what I really really want to know is – for the facilitating the public destruction of this young man’s self-respect by the publication of the advert in the first place, and no doubt for further reducing his prospects of securing a pupillage via the publication of the BSB statement and associated letter (which at least insinuates that he has improperly attempted to gain an advantage over his fellow pupillage seekers) – how much did Counsel magazine charge?

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It may have been naive or unjustifiably optimistic to think such an advert would miraculously produce results (okay it was definitely naive and over-optimistic), but he should never have been allowed to put himself in this position by the Bar’s own magazine. I hope Counsel magazine has apologised to the poor bloke and refunded his money.