I was wondering if there is a standard practice regarding the use of labels in Lisp. I've been messing around with a Lisp implementation of the algorithm described in the first answer here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/352203/generating-permutations-lazily My current version uses labels to break out portions of functionality.

(defun next-permutation (pmute)
  (declare (vector pmute))
  (let ((len (length pmute)))
    (if (> len 2)
        (labels ((get-pivot ()
                   (do ((pivot (1- len) (1- pivot)))
                       ((or (= pivot 0)
                            (< (aref pmute (1- pivot))
                               (aref pmute pivot)))
                        pivot)))
                 (get-swap (pivot)
                   (let ((swp (1- len)))
                     (loop for i from (1- len) downto pivot do
                           (if (or (and (> (aref pmute i)
                                           (aref pmute (1- pivot)))
                                        (< (aref pmute i) (aref pmute swp)))
                                   (< (aref pmute swp) (aref pmute (1- pivot))))
                               (setf swp i)))
                     swp))
                 (next (swp pivot)
                   (rotatef (aref pmute (1- pivot)) (aref pmute swp))
                   (reverse-vector pmute pivot (1- len))))
          (let ((piv (get-pivot)))
            (if (> piv 0)
                (next (get-swap piv) piv)
              nil))))))

Since each label is only called once I was wondering if this is considered bad practice since the only reason to do it in this case is for aesthetic reasons. I would argue that the current version with labels is clearer but that may go against common wisdom that I'm not aware of, being new to Lisp.