Lesley Macdonagh, joint managing partner of Lovell White Durrant recently chaired the 1995 in-house counsel conference.

The aim was to get an overview of what the important issues are for in-house lawyers.'The key message I got at the conference was that personal chemistry is still very high up on their list of requirements.''To build up a relationship between in-house and external lawyers you have obviously got to do the work well,' says Ms MacDonagh.

'But from then on it comes down to trust, knowledge of each other, keeping in contact with new issues, helping on matters which the in-house lawyer just wants to bounce off you and being available.

These are all facets of a normal relationship.'Personal chemistry, Ms MacDonagh says, is something which is noticeable early on and if it clicks at the beginning it is unlikely to evaporate.

A good relationship should not be undervalued.

While it is right to keep firms on their toes, strong links with two or three firms give much better value in the round.'If you have got an ongoing relationship with a company you can be alive to issues which might have an effect on them like an emerging consultation paper,' she says.

'You can pick up the phone and say: "I don't know whether you want to respond to this but you ought to think about it."'Ms MacDonagh stresses that external lawyers must complement, not duplicate the in-house lawyer's skills.

She adds that they must ensure that their advice is given in a business context, it is no good simply to be legally correct.'The theme of most of the conference was how to get internal and external lawyers to work together without duplication,' she says.

'The worst form of duplication is something like getting a broad brief and advising, for example in an acquisition, on collateral warranties only to find that the client just want to "take a view" on it.

This happens rarely in an ongoing relationship with regular contact.'There was also a recognition on both sides that what people should be striving to achieve is value for money, not cheapness.

Most of the delegates agreed that tendering every piece of work to different firms does not build a relationship in which you can take the knocks of pieces of work going abortive.'The value of a continuing relationship is still a key factor in a lot of large clients' thinking.

Corporate chemistry is also important in terms of the law firm fitting the culture of the company.

Most successful companies are successful because they actually live what they preach as corporate identity.

'After price it still comes down to: "Can we work with these people?"'Ms MacDonagh has plenty of experience in working with people.

For 18 years she has practised planning, development and environmental law with Lovells.

She is a member of the Law Society's Council and was recently appointed by the secretary of state for the environment to his Property Advisory Group.She also has advice for small private firms struggling in the increasingly competitive beauty parades which have become the hallmark of commercial legal services.'The two obvious ways of marketing yourself are, first, doing an excellent job and impressing the opposition.

It is always gratifying when you pick up a job because you've been against somebody and they come back and say they liked what they saw.'The second thing is continuing client service which should repeat business.

If people have liked you on a transaction they will, as long as you remain competitive, want to continue to use you.

You can't get complacent about business for an existing client.

It's an extremely important source of work and to that extent you go about securing more work by good client care.'For me, the best advice for a beauty parade is to relax and be as normal as possible having done as much homework as you can.

At the interview be yourself because people want to know what it's like to work with you, not an actor or actress.'A beauty parade is very much an opportunity for the client to get to know you rather than vice versa.

The invitation to pitch documents which go out now are quite full.

You can get a good feel for whether a client wants team-working and, for example, whether they want open reporting.'Ms MacDonagh stresses that while competitive tendering is a proper and useful tool for the in-house lawyer, lawyers must make a profit from the relationship they have with each client.'If it [the firm] is confident in the relationship it can take the financial hits and knocks on one transaction or task while staying confident in the knowledge that, so long as it performs as well as t he competition, it will be given the opportunity to make good on the next one.

If that confidence is lacking, it is more difficult over a period to offer market-beating rates and performance.'I hope that if there was any message that went back from the external lawyers to the in-house lawyers in the conference it was that continually going from one firm to another will never give the best service or the best value because you have to be confident in an ongoing relationship to give the very best.