Jeremy Fleming profiles Dame Juliet Wheldon, head of the Government Legal Service

Dame Juliet Wheldon - the head of the Government Legal Service (GLS), based in the Treasury Solicitor's office in St James's Park in London - says what attracted her to the job was 'what I had hoped would be the mix between law and practical politics.

I do not mean party politics, but practical politics, actually "law in action"'.

She cannot have been disappointed.

After completing her pupillage as a barrister, she joined the GLS in 1976 and was posted to the Treasury, followed by a stint at the Attorney-General's Office.

This is where she saw some of the meatier political issues of the last two decades at first hand.

'The job in which I dealt with the most high-profile cases was the Attorney-General's Office.

This is a very small department in Whitehall terms that is absolutely at the centre of legal events because the Attorney-General - in addition to having the role of superintending the Crown Prosecution Service - acts as chief legal adviser to government.

As a result, one has an unparalleled breadth of legal issues going through the office.'

She says the Matrix Churchill case - in which she was involved in the advice given by the then Attorney-General, Sir Nicholas Lyell, to Michael Heseltine - then chairman of the Board of Trade - became extremely high profile.

Although the job has fulfilled its promise, she says there are differences from when she entered the service.

'I think it is now working under significantly greater pressure than when I joined.

I recall that when I joined, there was someone who went off on outdoor pursuits on Friday afternoons on a regular basis - and I really don't think for various reasons that that is something that one would expect to see now.

I think the GLS is much more professional and larger.'

However, she says the fundamentals of the 1,900 lawyer-strong service- spread over 40 government departments - remain the same.

She summarises this as 'working closely with administrators and ministers'.

The role is essentially, she says, one of being an in-house lawyer, and would be recognisable to someone working in-house in any large institution that has legal implications.

The additional dimension is that the government sometimes wants to change the law and government lawyers advise on how legislation can do this.

And given recent questions over the legality of the Iraq war, one can see how the role can become controversial.

Dame Juliet does not see any issues of conflict relating to the role of the Attorney-General as head of government lawyers, chief legal adviser to the government and a government minister.

Being careful to detach the comment from any recent issues, she says: 'I certainly don't want to talk about any specific instant, but the idea that the government of the day should only be allowed to get advice from Civil Service lawyers would seem to me to be a very bizarre one.

'I think they are entitled to have an extremely eminent lawyer who is also a minister giving them advice and I've never found any difficulty with that in my time.'

Much of her role within the Treasury Solicitor's Department - a central pool of government lawyers who can be employed by any of the client government departments - is taken with helping to link those lawyers within the different departments.

Senior Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) lawyer Anthony Inglese is involved both in sifting applications for GLS trainees and in appointing qualified lawyers to key GLS positions.

He says the route a candidate has followed to become a lawyer is largely irrelevant.

What counts is the quality of the attributes they bring to the job.

Dame Juliet says: 'The Civil Service is a good employer and very, very few trainees don't continue to work as qualified lawyers.

One who left recently to go to the City returned because she preferred the work done here.'

But is it not difficult to attract those on such large corporate salaries into the GLS? She replies: 'I don't think the comparison with City pay causes problems.

People aren't trapped in the GLS.

There are points in one's career where one can get out if one wants, or needs, to earn more money.

Most people who do come in find that the interest and responsibility is hugely rewarding, because you are advising on and litigating on issues that are of real interest and importance to people in the street.

I think that gives a lot of us great satisfaction - but these are choices that every individual makes for themselves.'

Mr Inglese says: 'We're looking for sharp analytical skills coupled with good problem-solving skills.

It's really important to have both - it's not sufficient to be strong on analysis if you can't solve problems and, equally, it isn't enough to have a streetwise solution to a problem if you haven't been able to analyse the issues deeply enough.'

'It's important to have good people skills - GLS lawyers form part of a team, so they need the skills to be able to make that work.

Communication skills are also important, especially the ability to express oneself clearly and precisely when drafting the law of the land.'

There are plenty of opportunities to move around within and between government departments - a phenomenon Mr Inglese says is 'rarely encountered in private practice, where it's all too easy to become stuck in a particular specialism'.

The service covers all government departments, except for Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Foreign Office, which has a separate legal department.

Dame Juliet says: 'We believe in lawyers having transferable skills and do not by and large recruit specialists.

One attractive facet is the ability to move about.'

But there are exceptions, she says: 'We do sometimes recruit in specific areas.

For example, I have recently commissioned a competition encouraging employment lawyers to come in - not on the basis that they will do employment law for the whole of their career, but because we have an immediate need for lawyers with that specialism.

And if people wish to continue to specialise, we do try to accommodate that.'

Another sector always in demand is that of public lawyers.

The big benefit of being a GLS lawyer, according to Mr Inglese, is that 'you are always learning and developing - there's always the chance to tackle new and refreshing subjects and to build upon your skills'.

He adds: 'Throughout my career, I've found GLS work hugely challenging and enjoyable.

Where else could you become a legal adviser to three government departments during the course of ten years - in my case the DTI, the Ministry of Defence and the Office of Fair Trading?'

Every year, Dame Juliet visits newly recruited lawyers at a residential course held for them, and, she says, 'everyone always seems to be very happy that they've joined'.

The ins and outs of the GLS

The Government Legal Service (GLS) employs almost 1,900 government lawyers, including - at present - 58 trainee solicitors and pupil barristers.

Some 71% of GLS lawyers are solicitors and 29% are barristers.

GLS lawyers work in 40 government organisations, from the Home Office to the Office of Fair Trading.

GLS legal teams can range in size from one lawyer in smaller regulatory bodies, such as Companies House and the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Authority, to more than 300 in the largest organisations such as the Treasury Solicitor's Department (TSD).

The Land Registry is the next biggest employer of lawyers, with almost 200, followed by the Department for Constitutional Affairs.

The Foreign Office, Crown Prosecution Service, Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and the Scottish and Northern Ireland Departments are organisationally separate areas of government legal provision, but they keep close links with the GLS.

The TSD's last annual report showed that it had an income of more than 66 million in 2002/03, with legal fees recouped from government clients and operating disbursements of 31 million each the main contributors.

The TSD's work concentrates on litigation.

It charged 285,193 hours on litigation in the year to 31 March 2003, while a new discrete employment and commercial contracts group recorded 23,179 hours.

The smaller advisory divisions, which provide non-contentious services to six specific departments, including the Cabinet Office, Treasury and Ministry of Defence, charged 6,231 hours.

The litigation division - where 281 of the TSD's 660 staff work - acts for more than 700 clients across 100 government departments and public bodies, and during the year opened more than 10,000 new cases, including challenges to the legality of the war in Iraq.

Around 200 lawyers have joined the GLS each year over the past four years, the majority from the private sector.

The average of the main entry level London salary ranges across the GLS at April 2002 was 37,000 to 47,800.

Average working weeks are around 41 hours.

Ms Wheldon was paid in a band between 140,000 and 145,000 in 2002/03.

Women make up 55% of GLS lawyers, while 10% of GLS lawyers define themselves as belonging to an ethnic minority group; at the most senior levels, the figures are 25% and 6.4% respectively.

Around 13% of GLS lawyers formally work part-time.