What will the clients of the 21st century require of their lawyers? How should solicitors be trained to meet those emerging demands?These are questions that Baker & McKenzie, arguably the world's biggest law firm with 53 offices in 32 countries and some 500 employees, has asked Anne Marie Stebbings to find answers to.Her appointment as director of professional and business development acknowledges the conjunction between training professionals and conquering new markets.'My vision is that there is an inextricable link between the internal development of a firm and the external position it has in the market place - I don't believe that you can divorce the two,' she says.Hopefully, the fact that Ms Stebbings joined Baker & McKenzie on 14 February this year will make that link a lasting one.She came from City firm Allen & Overy, where she had served as head of education and training, and won recognition for the firm's progressive approach in the field.Before that, she gained practice experience at Norton Rose, Crossman Block & Keith, Sinclair Roche & Temperley and Allen & Overy itself at assistant solicitor level.She acknowledges that the leap to manage that firm's training concerns was a substantial one.

'I'm a great believer that if you want to do something you have to go out there and have a go.'As well as representing the profession on the standing conference on legal education, Ms Stebbings also helped in the development of the now 20 ,000-strong Legal Education and Training Group.'It started off as a very informal group of four or five training directors, sitting in a bar over a pint or a glass of wine, working through common problems and areas of common interest,' she explains.'We now represent about the top third of the profession, and members are drawn from those firms which are taking on trainee solicitors.'She also felt the group gave her the opportunity to - dread word - 'network' with others in her position and learn from their experiences.Now, at the relatively tender age of 36, Ms Stebbings has wasted no time getting her teeth into the task at Baker & McKenzie.An early initiative was commissioning market research firm BPRI to conduct a client survey to elicit exactly what it was customers wanted from their solicitors.'BPRI found that it was critical that lawyers understood their clients' business - the main criticism from clients was that lawyers took too little time and trouble to understand the industry.'The second message was how crucial it is to communicate, and how it is vital to be involved with the client at all stages and to seek their views and opinions.'That market research has been complemented by a study of the way the firm's legal staff view the relationship with the client.A large part of her task, says Ms Stebbings, will be making those external and internal perceptions of Baker & McKenzie's performance dovetail ever more neatly.'We need to provide a service which is not just for the here and now, but is for the future, the future concerns and problems of clients,' she argues.

'I think that, as a profession, we will only survive if we focus now on the longer term.'So what does the future hold and how should firms be adapting to meet it head on?She picks the admittedly familiar example of alternative dispute resolution, ADR, the growth of which in the USA and Australia, she says, makes it a 'coming thing' for UK commerce and industry, whatever the cynics say.'A number of international firms have been introducing contracts which require ADR to be considered in any dispute situation.'Law firms should put themselves on the front foot by suggesting model ADR clauses to clients when putting deals on paper, and again flagging up ADR in the cases where disputes do arise.'You need to get inside the heart and the mind of the client.

Normally clients do not want to be adversarial or antagonistic, and would be much happier with a system which enabled them to come out with a happy relationship with the person on the other side - clients want to have a reputation as being good people to do business with,' Ms Stebbings asserts.Another heady brew for the future is the growing internationalisation of markets, combined with what she sees as the ineluctable advent of multi-disciplinary practices, or MDPs.'What you'll need is a lawyer who can deal with international problems for a client, look at the jurisdictional mixes and get the best mix.'That means someone who has a network of local offices plumbed into local law and local practice, who has the ability to take an overview when structuring a transaction with a client by looking at the jurisdictional clauses, tax aspects, the appropriate stock market and so on.'It is a broad canvas, and one on which she paints the lawyer in a reinvented role.

'You are looking at the possibility of lawyers becoming advisers to business - where we were some 25 years ago.'At a time when the legal profession is noted chiefly, perhaps, for its recalcitrance in the face of change and its bu siness incapacity, Ms Stebbings' new model lawyer/ business adviser might seem a little optimistic.But then again, she is there to lick them into shape: 'Lawyers have the potential and the capacity to do much more than the accountants.

I do think they have a lot of creativity which needs to be released and the key is releasing it.'