A while ago I saw a trailer for a film called The Counsellor. Apparently the counsellor in question is a hotshot lawyer, smart, ambitious and morally flexible, working for a drug-trafficking cartel. Not much like anyone I know. As we already learned from American TV shows, “counsellor” is an honorary title used in some countries for a courtroom lawyer, meaning, like the Godfather’s “consigliere”, someone who gives advice, or counsel. This meaning persists in other uses of