I don’t want to sound like your mother, but I can’t help noticing that a surprising number of family lawyers have found the ColdPlay accidental affair reveal to be irresistible fodder for a spot of marketing. And as yet another post pops into my LinkedIn feed this morning, I’m here to say: please stop. You should know better.

You may not have much sympathy for the astronomer and his secret squeeze, but as any family lawyer knows they are hardly unique in having an extra-marital workplace romance – but at the very least spare a thought for the other halves and the children whose lives have also probably just imploded, supernova like, every bit as much as the couple whose embrace and horrified reactions we’ve all now seen on every social media platform.

It is really depressing to see lawyers making a joke or a buck out of what is probably a life changing catastrophe for everyone involved – resharing the image of them perpetuates and aggravates the distress for both them and their families.

This morning’s delightfully classy post juxtaposed screengrabs of the couple against a cheerful avatar saying ‘if you too have been caught out having an affair – call me’. I despair.

This sort of marketing is just living up to all the worst stereotypes about family lawyers and it makes me slightly queasy.

So please. Be better. And if you can’t be better be wiser: maybe stop to consider whether a potential client will be attracted or repelled by the ghoulish exploitation that your post displays.

Here endeth the lecture.