Solicitors do not have a reputation as risk-taking go-getters.

So it is slightly surprising to hear that one of them has just given up a partnership to set up a Web-based goods delivery service unconnected with law.Benedict Ely, 33, comes from a legal background -- his father is a past president of the Law Society -- but left London intellectual property experts Rouse & Co International/Willoughby & Partners for his new venture.He says: 'I don't know if I'm a typical lawyer.

A lot of lawyers love nothing more than to c hew apart a meaty treatise and to argue it this and that way.

I think the part of law I enjoyed most was the actual practical problem solving, and working on projects.'John Browning, co-founder of First Tuesday, the networking centre in London where e-entrepreneurs and investors gather once a month, says: 'We do see a fair number of lawyers.

Part of what's going on here is working out new ways to do things within the law, so a knowledge of the law is important.

And the general disciplines of law are useful,' he adds, 'such as finding ways to make it happen, getting answers, reasoning, and the ability to pick up and learn fast.'According to First Tuesday's experience, there are two broad categories of e-entrepreneur: those who do not yet have children; and those whose children have completed their education.

Mr Browning says: 'I don't see many with kids.

Once school-fees kick in, they are not prepared to take the risks.'Graham Spitz, 30, a former assistant at Westminster firm Radcliffes who has helped set up a community Web site with vacancies for secretaries and other office workers called adminopolis.com concedes: 'It is very, very risky.' He says the fact that his wife works in the City, and that they have no children, helped him take the chance.Besides the right personal circumstances, e-entrepreneurs also need a product which lends itself to the Internet.

Lisa Preston, 33, set up Legalcv.com, a site which allows students to apply for training contracts and training vacancies centrally, without having to trawl through reference books and apply to firms individually.

It seems to be gradually overcoming an initial reluctance on the part of many law firms, who perhaps saw themselves as too grand to need its help.

According to Ms Preston firms are now realising that students expect to be able to use the Internet for everything.

'If they want a holiday they go to lastminute.com, and if they want a job they look for a Web site,' she says.Mr Ely,33, describes how he arrived at his product with his partner Charles Doyle, an investment banker he had known from their days together at the London Oratory School.'We started talking some time ago about what we might do if we were running a business together.

It was something we went through sitting down, throwing ideas around.

Some were totally off the wall, some of them had a bit more substance to be researched.

We gradually whittled it down until we found an idea the two or us with our respective skills could run with.' The next crucial factor for an Internet business is that it must be able to raise money, usually from outside investors.

In the earlier, heady days before the fashion site boo.com crashed, and high-tech share-prices fell suddenly and spectacularly earlier this year, it seemed that almost any Web site was worth millions as long as it was being visited.Now far more scrutiny is given by potential backers and the businesses themselves to cash flow, income and expenditure, and the expectations are far lower.

Mr Ely says initially his venture, beckandcall.co.uk , was offered vast sums of backing.

Then the climate changed and it relied on more modest sums from various private investors.All agree that it is no longer enough to expect to set up a site, float it and retire as millionaires at an early age, leaving speculators to get their fingers burned.

You now need to see the business as a long-term commitment.There also has to be a genuine business behind the site.

Mr Ely believes there is an unfulfilled demand for goods to be delivered to your homes at a time to suit the customer.

And that would apply to mail order and ordinary shops, even if there were no Internet shopping at all.

'A lot of companies out there have spent a lot of money getting their name recognised, but if the right product is not there it counts for nothing, and they won't come back to you a second time.'Ms Preston, is offering something to law students and law firms which cannot be done the same way without the Internet.

Mr Spitz's adminopolis.com established itself off-line before going on the Internet.Another example of the new realism is at elaw.org.uk, a site run jointly by Surrey solicitor Andrew Lutley and Norwegian barrister Xystein Graham-Flatebx, who works as a mediator and legal adviser.

Solicitors pay a £50 annual fee to join, and in return receive a secure site in which to exchange documents and information and specialist information on legal subjects and daily legal news updates.

Mr Lutley and Mr Graham-Flatebx set it up when it was announced that a similar site they both used was to close down.

Both have kept their day jobs as well.

Mr Lutley, a niche sole practitioner in charity law says: 'If the system develops as I'd like over next three or four years I guess it might be worth something.'I can't hand on heart say that -- as of today -- it's a valuable asset.

But we didn't go into it to make a packet.

We went in because something we valued as users was about to be given the chop.' The two founders used their own money to set up the site.Is there a right time in your career to drop out and move into e-business? Probably not, experience suggests.

It depends when you are ready.

Mr Browning at First Tuesday says the businesses entrepreneurs choose vary according to which category they fall into.

'The younger ones tend to set up the higher risk boom or bust businesses, with the potential to be enormous.

They have more to win, less to lose.'The older solicitors are setting up two- or three-person businesses with the potential to earn them a lot of money, but not to grow.

'These are like Web-based consultancies.

They have the experience to see the niche.'Many of those who have taken the plunge into e-commerce stayed put.Ms Preston, a trusts' expert with Eversheds in Jersey, with a supportive husband who is also a partner in the business, realised with her fourth child that she did not want to return to a 9-5 existence.

'I can do this business with them around, and I am building something for them,' she says.Andrew Lutley, 49, was a partner at Lovell White Durrant until 1990, before setting up as a sole practitioner.

He enjoys running a business.

For Graham Spitz, it was in his blood.

Most of his family have been retailers, and the puzzling thing was why he became a corporate lawyer.

Even then, he notes, 'most of my clients were entrepreneurs'.

In Mr Ely's case, he wanted to be running something and even considered setting up a law firm.

'But we couldn't see a way of doing it better,' he says.