Among the many letters congratulating Yve Newbold on her appointment as chief executive of Pro-Ned, the UK's leading boardroom of Pro-Ned, the UK's leading boardroom headhunter, there were several from solicitors expressing their own boardroom credentials.Mrs Newbold, a solicitor and company secretary with Hanson, is due to start her new job in October.

Before then she anticipates more inquiries from lawyers with their eyes on non-executive director positions in the UK's top plcs.She believes solicitors can and do make 'excellent' non-executive directors.

'Many solicitors', she says, 'run very successful practices so that they are business people in their own right.

And some have got tremendous commercial experience having been involved in large commercial deals.'This type of experience, she maintains, can help to make up for a lack of direct boardroom involvement.'There are a huge number of lawyers who are already non-executive directors,' she says.

Behind accountants, lawyers are the second most represented profession in UK companies in a non-executive capacity.

But she sounds a note of caution: 'Not all solicitors will be right for these positions.'She says 'arrogant and overbearing' City solicitors are not what plcs are looking for.

'That just does not go down well in the boardroom.

What you actually want are good team players.

A partnership is very different from the collective unity of the boardroom.'And she says: 'The days are over when the job went to the chairman's cousin who turned up for one meeting a year.'She also points out that Pro Ned represents the company and not aspiring executive-directors, stressing that it is not a recruitment agency for lawyers.Mrs Newbold is happy to be moving into the field of corporate governance at a time when Britain leads the world in this area.

'For so many years we trailed America and now we have the best ideas,' she says.One of those ideas was Pro Ned, which was created in the 1980s by the Bank of England in order to improve British corporate governance and has already placed over 800 directors.

It was privatised last year when it was sold to Zehnder International.The Cadbury committee, which reported in 1992 in the wake of such City debacles as Guinness and Blue Arrow, placed obligations under non-executive directors to monitor and control.

In the recently published Greenbury report these responsibilities were extended to influence executives' pay.The non-executive director, says Mrs Newbold, should now stand back and give supervisory advice on the overall direction and strategy of the business.

Mrs Newbold, a non-executive director with BT and Coutts Bank, says she knows of incidents which show that since the Cadbury report, further City fiascos have been avoided.

And, in at least a couple of situations, she says it was solicitors who steered the company away from potentially 'disastrous' situations.'The sound thinking and control exercised by some non-executive directors at the salient moment has helped to rule the day.'She describes the role of non-executive director as combining 'anal ytical skill coupled with shrewd business judgment'.

Non-executive directors are dealing with very complex issues and are subject to a range of liabilities.

You cannot just step out of a job advising, for example, in rail privatisation and walk into a major plc.'She advises: 'To be suitable for non-executive positions solicitors should have some sort of plc experience.'That means they already need to be non-executive directors which creates a chicken and egg hurdle.

Obviously, solicitors who have worked closely with a company in the past will be well placed.

But Mrs Newbold agrees that without appropriate experience it is very difficult to get started as a non-executive director.

She advises solicitors to build up their extramural commercial portfolios.'They should build up a track record of serving on outside bodies, such as a local authority and make sure they attend meetings.

Without this type of background plcs are simply not going to be interested.'She adds: 'City lawyers, because of their involvement with major corporate clients, will probably say that they could see themselves in the boardroom of some of those clients at some point in their lives.'But Mrs Newbold believes good candidate solicitors can come from Britain's other commercial centres.

'I am very impressed with some of the Birmingham solicitors I have met,' she says.Solicitors with non-corporate specialisations might also find themselves valued as non-executive directors.

Fraud lawyers may well be useful to smaller firms keen to use.'The smaller the company the more likely the company will find a specialist's skill very useful.'Solicitors who simply feel they can offer boardrooms a more worldly wise experience may also even find their place on a board.

'Lawyers often have sound judgment because they have seen so much in the world,' says Mrs Newbold.Mrs Newbold's own career has enabled her to build up an impressive record by using her legal background to complement her business skills.

She began her career with IMB, UK, where she completed industrial articles which included a stint with Ashurst Morris Crisp.

She describes this as very innovative for the time.

By the time she was 25 she had four children which, although she concedes for most career women is doing things back to front, meant maternity leave would not slow down the momentum of her career.Mrs Newbold has strong views on how there should be more women at the top of British business.

'Women have so much to offer, yet they are not being given the chance.

They bring a different and valuable perspective to the boardroom.'She left IBM when she felt was still being treated as 'the articled clerk', despite being fully qualified.

She went to Rank Xerox in the USA where her talents were more appreciated and was appointed as the company's international counsel, leading a team of top US lawyers.She was then headhunted by Walt Disney, who wanted a lawyer with US experience to head up its legal operations in Europe.

At Disney she concentrated on defending the company's copyright.

And her successful influence there has meant breaches of Disney copyright have been significantly cut back.

From there she went to Hanson to take charge of the company's giant secretariat.Since she passed her law finals at Lancaster Gate and joined the workforce in 1968 she has gradually moved away from the law into the heart of business.'But I value my legal training,' she says, 'and still know where to turn when I need to look up the law.'1995