That slapping sound you can hear? It's Linklaters' PR team facepalming in unison.

On Friday the firm splashed out on a full page advert in the Financial Times special report Innovative Lawyers 2013 (no doubt you've already read it cover to cover and added it to your Innovative Lawyers binder).

The tagline of the ad was "Innovation runs through everything we do." In a groan-inducing slick demonstration of the boast, certain letters in the guff beneath were highlighted in pink to spell out "innovation". Ooo! Clever. Give it my business.

Except not so clever, because someone failed to colour in all the right letters:



Instead of innovation, Linklaters is apparently run through with "innovaion", which sounds like a rare disease. At best the firm has broadcast an embarrassing lack of attention to detail to the FT's readers, and at worst it needs to notify past sexual partners of infection risk. Either way, probably not the look it was going for.

Despite suffering from innovaion, the Magic Circle firm still managed to come top in the FT's assessment of the most innovative law firms. Still, maybe it should consider hiring back the ex-associate who recently built a proofreading machine. After all, it's not the first time a Linklaters typo has escaped into the wild.