Julia Woolf, 32, became an equity partner in top ten City firm Linklaters & Paines this time last year.

Did anything about the change surprise her? 'I suppose I didn't appreciate how nice the partners' lunches were,' she confesses.

This slightly flippant answer is Ms Woolf's way of illustrating the fact that she has taken her promotion very much in her stride.Not all new partners make the same seamless transition, according to Sally Woodward, professor of legal professional development at Nottingham Law School, which runs two-day courses for new partners.

She sums up the classic difference between a partner and other solicitors as being: 'A lot of lawyers find it really difficult to give up concentrating on the legal work and to have to go out and get business.

The key difference is that you are an employee until you are a partner, when you become an owner.

The employee focuses on doing the job, the partner has to become an entrepreneur'.She says in general the larger the firm, the more cushioned the assistant solicitors are from the entrepreneurial and business aspects of the firm.Derek Tolley, 34, who was made an equity partner last year at Addleshaw Booth & Co, the 83-partner Leeds and Manchester firm, says one of the reasons partners are promoted is that they have already shown an awareness of the commercial side.

He says: 'I had certainly discussed with partners at the firm the business we were doing with existing clients, and the sort of clients we were hoping to attract.

The firm encouraged that question and answer approach.

You show an interest in the business, then the business is interested in you'.Stuart Kightley, 34, who became a salaried partner last year at six-partner north London firm Osbornes, says that even in a small firm there is a cultural leap.

He adds: 'While you do get firm ideas of business in finance while you are doing your job as an assistant, what you don't get before you are a partner is an overall strategic view of the rest of the firm'.

He says although the firm publishes monthly practice management reports seen by all its solicitors, at partnership level, one is an insider.Ms Woodward says partners in legal aid firms are at least as commercially aware as those where the client pays.

Peter Maynard, 34, who became a salaried personal injury partner at 11-partner Leo Abse and Cohen in Cardiff last year, says the big change for him was when he earlier became head of a team.But Mr Maynard says he has a strategic decision-making role now.

He adds: 'I wouldn't say I make the decisions about where the firm is going, but I have an input, which is satisfying'.One difference for partners in legal aid work is that clients will not pay more when they have a partner working on their case.Ms Woolf at Linklaters says that at a big City firm, when you become a partner, the work you do changes gradually.

She says: 'For cost efficiency reasons you become involved in different areas of the transaction depending on your level.

Clearly as you become more senior, you are involved in structuring transactions and it becomes more important to get an overview and focus on the big points'.In all sizes of firm, partners find they have to devote more time to management duties.

Mr Tolley says: 'I spend time doing non-chargeable work which might be client development work or internal work, as well as logging the hours like everybody else.

But there's an awful lot more out-of-hours meetings as a partner'.

He had spent the whole of the previous Saturday at a partners' meeting.

'They have to be done, and they have to be held outside working hours,' he says.Mr Kightley has also noticed the greater time spent on non-fee-earning work.

He says: 'Partners are expected to put in an hour more than non-partners, so it's not a huge increase in time'.Ms Woolf says that in a large City firm, which has more specialist managers and support structures, the same applies.

She says: 'There is an extra layer of administrative management work on top.

It can mean a lot of extra hours in the office, but I'd say it is not a dramatic lifestyle change.

You have to learn to juggle more, and your shoulders have to become broader, but they should have been becoming broader all along'.Partners have nearly always worked as extremely hard and long as senior assistants, so the hours may not change, but the relationship with the firm is undoubtedly different when they make partner.

As Mr Maynard at Leo Abse says: 'I was committed already; that's why I moved here and that's why I stayed here.

But partnership demonstrates a reciprocal commitment by the firm, which makes me feel happier'.New partners have to be prepared for their relationship to alter with peers who have not been made up.

Mr Kightley concedes: 'I suppose that's inevitable from the structure of having a partnership.

But it's not like bosses and workers.

To a degree you're looked up to, but you like to think you don't lose sight of everybody else's interests, and become "one of the bosses"'.Ms Woolf says Linklaters works hard to make sure that relationships with people who are not made partner are not damaged.

She says: 'We have people who are very happy to stay on - partnership is not the be all and end all'.Leo Abse has published objective criteria for the way it selects salaried partners, which should leave those passed over less bitter than might otherwise be.Mr Maynard says: 'It hurts like hell, but on reflection you can think to yourself "OK, I've got a little more work to do in that area"'.It probably helps relations between partners and others that perks - aside from the culinary and social delights of Linklaters's partners' lunches - are often more mythical than real.

As Mr Maynard says: 'A few minor things, that's all.

I got a hands-free telephone'.