Most lawyers go into the profession to practise law.

Once they join a partnership, their core function is to provide legal services in order to generate fees.

But as the partnership grows, it may need people to take on responsibility for its financial management, its marketing function and its personnel needs.The dilemma is whether those jobs are best left to partners who understand the business, or whether they should be handed over to a trained specialist who may not be a lawyer.

Take the function of the personnel department as a case in point.

Do lawyers really need to employ personnel professionals, or can they manage their staff themselves?The answer is that it depends on a number of factors.

Not surprisingly, the size of the firm is a key element.

Geoff May, the director of human resources at City firm Linklaters & Alliance, explains: 'The bigger the partnership gets, the greater the need for expert functions and the greater the need to hire people because the partners cannot do it on their own.'Robert Halton, the human resources director at City firm Dibb Lupton Alsop, agrees: 'In a firm this size, it is just not feasible for partners to be involved in every aspect of the life of the organisation.' He emphasises the strategic role that human resources should play in the firm's overall business strategy, not an area that partners, however interested, necessarily have the time - or the inclination - to get involved in.Kevin Fletcher, senior partner at Jacksons, a 20-partner firm based in the north east, also found that as the firm grew, so did the need for a personnel professional.

'We were getting to the stage where the number of staff and the number of offices were building up, making it very difficult - if not impossible - for a partner, or any other executive, to manage on a part-time basis.

We also needed to get our training arrangements into shape as well as our salary structure and so on.

We felt that was a full-time job requiring the attention of a professional.'But Mr Halton also emphasises the need for partners to remain involved at some level in people management issues, rather than hand over responsibility completely to the professionals.

'Partners still need to keep their finger in the human resources pie - they cannot delegate those issues for which they are responsible as a first-line manager to someone else.'He points to the firm's graduate recruitment scheme, which involves a partner being given responsibility for office trainees.

He explains: 'The lawyers do not need to get involved in the administration of the scheme or maintain links with the universities, but they need to be there so that we can show how much importance we attach to the scheme.'The personnel manager at a large provincial law firm agreed.

She said: 'I provide services that individual team leaders cannot readily fit into their day, but this does not take away their immediate responsibilities.

I see the relationship as working alongside one another.

They have the first line supervisory responsibility, but if they need further help and advice, I am there to provide an expert view.'Margaret Bradburn, the director of personnel at Eversheds in London, explains that part of the role of her department is to provide an overall structure within which the partners have to operate.

'One of my functions is to provide a set of rules for the firm.

Take the example of an offer letter.

If there were no rules as to what the offer letter should contain, then a partner could go off and make an offer which might be quite different to another one made by a partner up the corridor.

We would then end up with employees on different terms and conditions.

That would be anarchy.'But do partners not resent being told what to do? Mr May says there can sometimes be friction if the relationship is not handled sensitively.

'Tension arises,' says Mr May, 'because of the role partners have in being the owners of the business.' He says partners have three separate personae.

'First of all, they are fee earners.

That is, they make money and are very successful at it.

At the same time they have a strong identity with their staff, whom they work with, but who also cost them money.

Finally, as the partnership gets bigger, they also have to get used to being a manager.' Mr May admits that these roles can, and do, result in a clash of interests between the role of the partner as a professional and his or her role as an owner of the firm.But this clash is not confined to larger firms.

Sarah Firth, who is the office and personnel manager at Hodge Jones & Allen, a 16-partner firm in north London, says: 'The partners recognised the need for support services, but did not necessarily find it easy to accept that they had to hand over control to someone else.' But she says that experience is not peculiar to law firms.

'There is always an element of "them and us" where you have got a support function that brings in no revenue and another that does.

That happens in any sales environment.'Surprisingly, that was not the reaction at Jacksons.

Mr Fletcher explains: 'It wasn't difficult to persuade the partners here to give up responsibility for personnel matters.

Quite the opposite in fact - there was very little that they wanted to hang on to.' He attributes this to the way in which the idea of a managed environment was sold to them.

Catherine Gilburt, the firm's personnel manager, adds: 'The question then arises as to whether a manager can take all the responsibility or whether there should still be some involvement at a practical level, especially where the management of people is concerned.'Even in firms with no separate personnel department or single specialist, there is usually at least one person with some responsibility for personnel matters.

For instance, Margaret Gotts, the office manager at eight-partner firm Hansell Stevenson in Norwich, is essentially an administrator whose job touches on personnel.

Likewise, Rob Styles is the practice manager at Robinsons, a 12-partner firm in Derby, who has some responsibility for personnel matters.

He reports to the managing partner who makes the decisions in conjunction with the other partners.More unusual is the situation at Harvey Ingram Owston in Leicester, a 26-partner firm with 180 staff, which - despite its size - has no separate personnel function as yet.

Anthony Yates, the administrative services manager for the firm, has filled the gap for the last five or six years, but thinks that the time has come to bring in an expert.

He says: 'We need to have a more disciplined and structured approach.

We need someone to help us to use different testing techniques rather than rely on CVs and interviews and to provide properly structured adverts.

I have done some work on a salary structure, but we could do with someone to progress that.'Irrespective of the size of the firm, the chances are that those working in personnel will not be experts in the field of legal practice.

The question is whether they need to be.

One personnel manager at a provincial law firm argues: 'You do not have to be fully au fait with the core business to carry out a management role.

Nor do you have to be a solicitor to contribute successfully to it.

My role is to support the business and gain an understanding of what the partners want by discussing relevant matters with the people involved'.Ms Firth agrees.

'I don't necessarily understand the business I'm in, but nor do I need to.

I understand the concept that time is money and that helps.

It's not important that I'm not a lawyer.' But working for a law firm is different to other organisations, she agrees.

'Everyone wants to be involved,' she says, pointing out that unlike commerce and industry, law firms often appear to lack one person with ultimate decision-making powers.Ms Bradburn says the major difference between working for a law firm and any other organisation is its structure.

'Culturally it is obviously different.

There is a non-hierarchical structure and you do not report to a managing director.

In other firms, you have someone to report to, but you have a range of partners to report to here.' To get round the problem, she suggests: 'You have to learn to sell an idea to the board and learn to talk to all the partners.

You need to have huge persuasive skills which involves getting alongside the partners to show them why you want to deal with something in a certain way.' There is only one problem, she says: 'It all takes much longer and you have to be very patient.'