t is a long way on the District Line from the Palace of Westminster to Newham Council Town Hall in London's East End.

But last week both Victorian buildings were linked as yet another government minister stepped on a banana skin.

Nicholas Scott, the normally low profile junior minister for social security for the disabled, found himself in the soup at Westminster over the demise of the Civil Rights for Disabled Persons Bill.

And Richard Dunford, Newham senior solicitor and recently installed chairman of the 150-member Group for Solicitors with Disabilities (GSD), found himself turning up the heat.'The government has lost credibility over this affair,' says Mr Dunford bluntly.

'If that means that Nicholas Scott has to resign [in order to restore that credibility] then perhaps he should go.'The death of Labour Party leader John Smith QC has subsequently shifted the spotlight away from this latest government mishap.

But Mr Dunford remains passionately committed to the aims of the Bill and to the belief that ministers must soon face up to the issue of disabled rights.

Currently, he says, they are 'out of step with public opinion on the issue of anti-discrimination legislation for people with disabilities'.Mr Dunford readily acknowledges that there were reasoned misgivings over the Bill as drafted.

But, he points out, 'the Bill had cross-party support which therefore placed an onus on the government to take it over and knock it into shape to ensure that it was not defeated.

Instead, we had the rather sorry spectacle of the government acting in a very underhanded way, colluding with some of their backbenchers to kill off the Bill.'As a sop, ministers last week promised they would promote their own legislation.

But, as a result of the recent wrangling, they could find gaining support for their own version next to impossible.

'It will be much more difficult for the government to reopen constructive dialogue with people with disabilities on the subject of legislation,' maintains Mr Dunford.The 38-year-old deaf lawyer is certainly prepared to continue the campaign, even if by his own admission he is slightly uncomfortable in the public arena.

He is the fifth chairman of the young group, having joined at its launch.The road to Newham for Mr Dunford began with a law degree from what was then Kingston Polytechnic.

He might have left the law at the academic stage had he not met a deaf solicitor who was at the time working for a Lincoln's Inn firm.She acted as something of a role model for Mr Dunford, who went on to the Guildford branch of the College of Law i n 1979.

Despite encouragement, there were still practical hurdles to negotiate.Indeed, it took Mr Dunford two years after finishing the LSF and dozens of application letters before he secured articles at a Holborn firm which had links with the Royal National Institute for the Deaf.'The overwhelming response to the applications,' recalls Mr Dunford, 'was that the firms could not see how a solicitor could function without being able to use the telephone.

I did have some very nice replies but they weren't prepared to look beyond the disability.

So, at the time, the telephone was very high on my list of personal demons.'He qualified in 1983 and one year later got his first taste of local government, taking a job in the legal department of the Greater London Council.

In 1986, following the winding up of the GLC, he moved east to Newham, one year later rising to his current position of senior solicitor.In that post he has both his own case load and management responsibilities, including supervising another qualified solicitor, an articled clerk and a senior law clerk.

As with any other lawyer in local government, Mr Dunford's case load consists mainly of contract work, litigation and some employment law.While he is dismissive of the recent efforts of national government regarding the disabled, he is positively effusive when discussing the role of local authorities.

'Local government has been at the forefront in developing policy for disabled employees.

It was not the main reason why I joined local government but, since I have been here, Newham has made facilities available and specialised equipment so that I can use the telephone now.

And I have come to realise just what an important role the telephone does play in a solicitor's daily work.'Although local authorities have generated many chances for disabled solicitors, Mr Dunford maintains the mood at private practice law firms is gradually changing.

Most of the GSD's members now work in law firms.

'There is a growing awareness amongst firms about the potential benefits of employing someone who is a solicitor first and a person with a disability second,' he says.While the future of civil rights legislation has preoccupied Mr Dunford's recent thoughts, he emphasises that the GSD is by no means a one-issue outfit.

During his year in office he plans to focus attention on the question of access to courts for disabled people.And, as someone who has been deaf from a very young age, Mr Dunford is also keen to campaign for people with sensory impairment to have a fairer crack of the whip regarding jury service and appointment to the magistrates' Bench.

Deaf people are currently generally carved out of both of those roles.For someone who is 'not a natural campaigner', Mr Dunford has his work cut out as he hits the lobbying trail.