Piers Coleman recalls perhaps his finest hour as an election lawyer.

It was 1997, and the Winchester constituency was neck-and-neck between the sitting Tory, Gerry Malone -- former deputy chairman of the party -- and the challenging Liberal Democrat, Mark Oaten.Mr Coleman acts for the Liberal Democrats, and he received a telephone call from the constituency the morning after polling day, with the result still up in the air.

'They were on their second recount, and they needed my help with a couple of ballot papers the returning officer wouldn't accept,' he says.

TI faxed them some material, they produced it to the returning officer, and he said: "Quite right".' Mr Oaten's winning majority was two votes.The Tories then challenged the result on several grounds, including those two contested votes.

'Because of the way the law is structured, you can't get a result changed without getting a court to recount the votes,' explains Mr Coleman, who has been legal adviser to the Liberal Democrats and their predecessors for almost 20 years.

He says it is good for democracy, but it is bureaucratic.Politicians need a good steer so they know how to play it publicly.

'That's where the expertise comes in and that's why they use me,' Mr Coleman says.

"The day the petition came in, I told them what the result would be.

Because it is such a curious area of the law, some lawyers would have said "hold on, I need to look it up in books and consult counsel" and then come back a few days later.'He says the process in the High Court where the challenge was heard had shades of last year's US presidential election count in Florida.

TThere were 57 ballot papers which did not have the official mark; they had not been stamped by the polling officer.' The majority of those were votes for Mr Malone.

'Election law says that those papers are void, but that if they would have changed the result, then the election has to be re-held.'We sat in the High Court, examining one paper after another, holding them against the light to see if there were marks.

There was a great team of lawyers, with the senior master in charge.

It was very exciting.'The other objections were all fought off, and in the re-contested vote, Mr Oaten won with a majority of more than 20,000.For all the professional enthusiasm, Mr Coleman, a partner with City firm Nicholson Graham & Jones, i nsists that for the lawyers to be Liberal Democrat enthusiasts would actually be a disadvantage to the party they represent.He says: TI always say to the Liberal Democrats that I'm objective and not interested in political preferment.

If you pay my rates, at least you'll know you are treated like any other commercial client.

I think they like that.

I'm not tied to any faction, and they get advice straight.'The firm's other election law partner, Jane Harte-Lovelace, who works with Mr Coleman for the Liberal Democrats, has a similar view.

She is not a card-carrying member of any party, but says it would not be a problem if she belonged to a rival party.

TAs far as I'm concerned, they're a client.

I really want to do the best for a client, and I really want to win and hate it when I don't.'Mr Coleman came to represent the Liberal Democrats via a circuitous tour of British politics in the last quarter of the 20th century.

When he was still an articled clerk in 1974, he acted for a Labour agent accused of election fraud at Newcastle Crown Court.

He was then asked by the Labour Party to help improve its advice to candidates.

In 1979, Labour asked him to advise Ian Wrigglesworth [now Sir Ian], Labour MP at the time for Teeside and Thornaby, who was facing election complaints.Two years later, Mr Wrigglesworth, having been vindicated, joined the defection to the new Social Democrat Party (SDP), which needed a lawyer, and Mr Coleman was asked to fill the role.

TThe SDP was a start-up.

It was great fun,' he recalls.

He spent 10% to 15% of his time on the SDP as a client because it was new to the game of running a party.In 1989, it merged with the Liberals, and he became the lawyer for the merged party.

TIt took time to adjust, as with any client involved in a merger.'While Mr Coleman is a commercial property lawyer as well as an elections expert, Ms Harte-Lovelace is a litigator, and came to election law because she joined Nicholson Graham & Jones around the same time as Mr Coleman in 1993, and the team needs both specialities.She says: 'Since I joined, I have come from a position of no knowledge about election law to having a lot of knowledge.

It is a core part of my work around election times -- that's not just general, but local and European elections as well.

TIt's a niche area I go in and out of -- I don't have the deep-seated political experience of Piers.

But I've probably done more (election) petitions than most.'Both worked on the Winchester case.

They also fought the only petition in a European election, in 1994 in Devon and Plymouth East, when the Liberal Democrat lost to the Conservative by 700 votes, but a mischievous third candidate had stood as a 'Literal Democrat' and polled 10,000 votes.'We had masses of evidence from voters saying they had been confused, and would have voted for the Liberal Democrat if they had realised,' Mr Coleman says.

But the judge ruled that all procedures had been correctly followed, and the returning officer was not entitled to 'look behind the face' of the nomination paper.

TThe candidate was devastated.

Paddy Ashdown (the party leader) was devastated.

It was a low moment because we'd expected to win,' he recalls.In the 1997 general election, there was a rash of similar copycat candidates given the green light by this judgment.

TIt was open season -- all the parties' lawyers were in and out of the High Court and law was literally being made from one morning to the next.

There were ten cases, maybe more, in ten days.' He says it was clear the law had to change, and the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998 duly closed the loophole.There are local election petitions too, although these generally attract less attention outside the immediate participants.

'You'll find the returning officer has failed to count two boxes of votes,' Ms Harte-Lovelace says.'All sorts of disastrous things happen, particularly where you have two or three different elections going on at the same time.

It is fascinating stuff.

Most of the case law is coming from the 19th century.

You trawl back through them, and no two cases are the same.'Away from the hurly-burly of elections, the brief also takes in the party's general commercial needs as well as election law.

'They recently had their building refurbished and moved out for six months, then back into it again.

One of my property partners handled it,' Mr Coleman says.Ms Harte-Lovelace adds there are both differences and similarities compared to the rest of her work.

TIn some ways it's more like high net-worth personal litigation, such as family disputes -- where a company has been founded by a grandfather, and the second generation falls out and it ends in tears,' she says.

'Then it's not just about money, it's their heritage, and they take it terribly personally.'Elections, too, make a huge personal difference.

Is somebody going to be a member of Parliament for the next four or five years, or are they going to be nothing? If you're acting for a bank it's important, but it's not as personal.'But while the party's legal advisers may be apolitical, there are plenty of lawyers keen to nail their colours to the mast.The Association of Liberal Democrat Lawyers, run by a ten-member committee, is currently chaired by Jonathan Marks QC, a common law silk from 4 Pump Court.

He was elected chairman this year, taking over from David Ive, a tax and trusts partner at City firm Rowe & Maw, to head the 300-member group.Solicitor John Burnett MP is the party's legal affairs spokesman.Mr Marks says the association is 'extremely active'.

Once a year, in addition to its involvement with party policy makers, it organises a lecture through what is known for mysterious reasons as the T80 Club'.

The last one was delivered by Lady Justice Hale who spoke about equal opportunities and the bench.An annual dinner also attracts distinguished speakers: last year's guests were Earl Russell and solicitor peer Lord Phillips of Sudbury.Mr Marks explains that Liberal Democrat lawyers have strong representation in the House of Lords: human rights pioneer Lord Lester QC of Herne Hill, and Lords Goodhart, Thomas and Clement-Jones are all examples, as well as Lord Phillips.The association has recently resolved to take 'a stronger political direction with a higher-profile policy input into legal affairs within the party'.It is producing a policy paper on access to justice, to address what Mr Marks calls its 'profound concerns' about the limited extent of publicly funded work going to an ever-decreasing number of solicitors, and Tthe unavailability of funded representation, especially in personal injury work'.In taking a more creative political stance, the association is merely reflecting the party's history.

The last two Liberal prime ministers, Herbert Henry Asquith and David Lloyd George were, respectively a barrister and solicitor.