SUE ALLEN REPORTS ON THE JOUSTING FOR SUPREMACY BETWEEN LAW FIRMS AND THE LIFESTYLE APPEAL FACED BY SOLICITORSAsk people what they know about Bristol and they will probably tell you about the Clifton suspension bridge, the two universities, and the regency houses.

Lawyers may add that they might consider working there when London loses its appeal.But, beneath the old town houses and the trendy waterside warehouse conversions, Bristol is a thriving business centre where old and new money rub shoulders.Although the city was built on merchants' wealth from sea-trade in slaves and tobacco, its darker past has now been eclipsed by money made in financial services, banks, and insurance.

The aerospace industry and, more recently, high tech industrie - earning Bristol the nickname 'silicon gorge'- have made Bristol their base.As part of a buoyant local economy, Bristol law firms are also thriving, and the legal scene is hotting up.

Bristol Law Society president Nigel Puddicombe, a partner at Cartwrights, says the days of the 'informal gentlemen's agreement not to tread on each other's patches' is over.'When I moved to the area in 1987, firms were more or less even-sized.

Now Burges Salmon is three times the size it was then and the divisions between the top-tier firms and the rest seems to be widening,' he says.Although Osborne Clarke and Burges Salmon are widely held to dominate the Bristol market, particularly in corporate work, the much-discussed 'bronze medal' position remains open, and contenders are lining up.One practice with its eye firmly focused on third place is TLT - a re sult of the merger earlier this year between Lawrence Tucketts and Trumps.

David Pester, TLT's head of corporate, says the south-west needed a third strong commercial firm: 'The question was, who was going to step in?' Mr Pester says the merger was necessary to achieve critical mass and become recognised as the natural third choice for corporate work.

'We are not going to go head-to-head with the market leaders but we will compete in certain areas, particularly corporate finance.'According to Julian Kinsey, a partner at southern England firm Bond Pearce, which opened in Bristol in 1998, it, like TLT, Veale Wasbrough, Bevan Ashford, City-based CMS Cameron McKenna and Laytons, all believe they could be a natural choice for third place.Although dominant, Osborne Clarke and Burges Salmon appear to be moving in different directions.

David Marsh, managing partner of Burges Salmon, says his practice wants to remain 'a single office firm'.

Osborne Clarke, meanwhile, which already has expanding offices in London and Reading, is planning closer links with its European alliance firms.

Osborne Clarke senior partner Chris Curling says it will merge with one alliance firm by the end of the year and expects a four-way merger by the end of 2001.The firm has also recently exploited its reputation in IT by becoming the first UK firm to open an office in California's Silicon Valley.

The office will offer UK and European advice to US firms and help UK firms looking to do business in the US.Among the other Bristol firms, many already have nationally recognised strength in niche areas: Bevan Ashford in health sector and private finance initiative work, and Veale Wasbrough in education.Through a series of high-profile mergers, Beachcroft Wansbroughs now has national coverage in the defendant insurance and clinical negligence sector.

Cartwrights and Eversheds are well known for their licensing practices.As a regional legal centre, Bristol draws work from businesses in the south-west region, but most firms agree that much of their work comes from outside the area.Nick Jarrett-Kerr, managing partner of Bevan Ashford, says relatively little of his firm's work comes from within one hour journey of the firm's office.

'The Bristol region is not really big enough to support a law firm of the size of Osborne Clarke, Burgess Salmon or Bevan Ashford, he says.Mr Marsh says that while the firm is loyal to its local clients, only around 10% of it turnover comes from Bristol and around 30% from the south-west as a whole.One unusual aspect of Bristol's legal landscape is the lack of national firms.

With the exception of Eversheds, which has a small presence in the city, few outside firms have entered the market.

Mr Marsh says: 'If national firms move here and think there is a large unmet legal need, they are wrong.

It is not that big a market and companies are already well served by local firms.'His view is shared by Tim Pyper, senior partner of TLT, who says if firms come to Bristol without an existing client, they would have a difficult job to break into the market 'as a greenfield site'.

Given the relatively limited size of the local market, firms would find themselves competing nationally for work against their own regional offices, he speculates.It seems the strategy of many big Bristol firms - to attract ex-City lawyers looking for a better lifestyle and sell clients the idea of a City-quality service at provincial rates - is paying off.Chris Groves, senior legal adviser at Orange - headquartered in Bristol - says he is impressed by the qualit y of its local lawyers.

'The firms we have used have provided a very strong service, every bit as good, for most things, as large London firms.'Although Orange will go to London for the 'massive corporate work' because of the need for 'almost endless resources', he says it used Burges Salmon successfully on a £100 million acquisition.An in-house solicitor at another major company with its head office in Bristol, says he would be less inclined to use local firms for the bigger deals, as the level of experience in the region was 'not what it is in London'.

But he was happy using Bristol firms for the company's day-to-day needs.For Bristol firms wishing to attract City lawyers, they will always have the quality of life card in their hand.

Holly Walsh, who made the move from City firm Baker & McKenzie to Osborne Clarke a few months ago, says she was 'sick of the tube' and could afford to buy a flat in a nice area of Bristol which she could never have done in London.

She says: 'In some ways, the work is harder than in London because you are dealing with more matters and you need to manage work better; but here, you get more responsibility and more involvement with the commercial side of your clients business.'But salaries in Bristol have always lagged around 25-33% behind London and are likely to continue to do so, according to Mr Marsh.Mr Kinsey says the recent London pay hikes have had an effect on more junior solicitors.

'They are lured to London by instant pay rises from £30,000, available at most commercial firms, to £42,000 in London,' he says.But for more senior solicitors, such as Robin Neill - an international arbitrator and recent partner-level recruit at Bevan Ashford - the move to Bristol was a lifestyle choice prompted by a desire to see his children grow up.After 11 years with City firm Clifford Chance, he thought he had 'done his time'.

He then tried a medium-sized City firm, Stephenson Harwood; but they as a breed, he maintains, are 'not long for this world' when regional firms, with lower overheads, are competing for the same work.'It really comes down to the life you want.

You work hard here but you can go to the pub with your friends at 6.30pm.

You could never do that at Clifford Chance, where people piddle around until lunchtime because they know they are going to be working until 3am.'WITH LOCAL COMPETITION FIERCE, SPECIALISTS ARE ALL THE RAGE IN BRISTOLAs Bristol firm Osborne Clarke heads abroad to forge international mergers, and Burges Salmon sits tight with a view to being a national firm with a single office centre, smaller firms in the area have their own ideas about where their futures lie.Since becoming managing partner of Clarke Willmott & Clarke in May 1999, David Sedgwick has turned the firm from a collection of 23, mostly small, high-street offices into what he says is a regional commercial firm.

He says his vision differs from that of some other Bristol firms in that they have 'no current plans' to compete nationally, but aim to service the south-west commercial community.Julian Kinsey, a partner at Bond Pearce, also sees the Bristol office as the key to its strategic development into 'a leading commercial firm across the south of England, excluding London'.

The firm already has offices in Plymouth, Exeter and Southampton.

Client demand has also prompted it to have a presence in Leeds and London.Mr Kinsey says the firm has no 'flags on maps' plans for further expansion, but he adds: 'In future, if we decided we wanted to be part of a national firm, or were approached by a north ern-based firm which wanted a southern base, we would like to be seen as attractive.'However, for other firms, the lure of local and national dominance has taken a more specialism-based tack.Christopher Eskell, managing partner of Cartwrights -- which has a strong national client base within the food and retail sectors and a country-wide reputation for licensing work -- says because Bristol is 'under plc'd' and lacks the 'industrial hinterland' of areas such as Birmingham and Leeds, its law firms were ahead of most of the country in focusing on specialist sectors and areas where they could compete nationally.

'Bristol is a good base because it has good transport links and because you can recruit top-quality people who want to move into the area,' he adds.Laytons -- which also has offices in Surrey, Manchester and London -- sees itself as a full service commercial firm within Bristol but a national player in construction.

Jane Ryland, a construction partner at Laytons, says that although her firm occasionally finds itself on the other side of local firms like Burges Salmon, Masons and Beachcroft Wansbroughs, more frequently on the other side are the northern offices of Eversheds, Addleshaw Booth & Co in Manchester and Hammond Suddards Edge in Leeds.Ms Ryland adds that having a national reputation for construction work, but being based in Bristol, means her firm attracts a huge amount of work from the local area.

'Our local catchment area goes as far south as Devon and Cornwall, it extends to Reading and as far as south Wales, Gloucester and Birmingham.'So, while Bristol has proved a springboard for firms wishing to break out of the south-west, so far it has proved less attractive for firms moving into the area.Richard Tyler, managing partner of City-based CMS Cameron McKenna, says his firm opened in Bristol ten years ago on the back of its relationship with Lloyds Bank's retail division when it relocated to the city.

Alongside that, the firm had opportunities in the insurance and reinsurance market through existing contacts.Mr Tyler adds that the recent decision to open a corporate practice in Bristol came on the back of key personnel wishing to move to the area and because it was in line with the firm's overall strategy.

But he is 'realistic' about the Bristol office's future.

'Like any market, there are firms in Bristol with well- established, long-standing links and high-quality operations.

If you want to succeed there you have to provide something different and altogether better and it is hard to build up those connections.

In the early days we were client driven and now we are sticking to the things that we are good at.'