Moving in-house is more popular than ever, says Helen McAtamney, who co-ordinates recruitment for consultants Graham Gill & Young.

She acknowledges that part of the reason is the 'lifestyle thing' - City lawyers wanting to escape the long nights and weekend calls to the office.

But increasingly, lawyers are attracted by the chance of some involvement in the commercial life of the companies they work for, breaking free from their legal pasts.Lawyers always come across problems in this regard.

They are specialists with a tendency towards caution; commercial judgement involves risk-taking that may not come naturally .

But with the ubiquitous influence of US corporate culture in the UK, and companies hiring in-house teams to ever greater extents, the time has never been better to move in-house.But it is not easy.

A 1996 survey of chief executives at FTSE-100 companies found that only two were solicitors - Bob Ayling at British Airways and Graham Hearne of Enterprise Oil.

Mr Ayling left BA under a cloud recently, while Mr Hearne (now Sir Graham) has moved up to chairman.Richard Wiseman trained at Mackrell Turner Garrett, a firm based in London's Covent Garden.

He is now general legal counsel and a director of Shell UK.

With a UK in-house team of 60, and 300 worldwide, Shell has one of the largest in-house legal outfits in the world.'Every lawyer who works for us is expected to provide not just technically first-class legal advice, but also to make a real commercial contribution to the transactions on which they are dealing', says Mr Wiseman.

There is nothing, he insists, within the structure of Shell to prevent this from happening; there is no 'ghettoising' of the in-house legal team.'Quite the contrary,' he expands.

'It's generally the case in, say, a merger or acquisition, that the only point of contact at Shell will be a tax man and a lawyer, which makes it imperative that the lawyer is able to act as a commercial conduit for the company.'Mr Wiseman says the commercial roles of Shell lawyers are reflected in the opportunities there are for lawyers to become chief executives within the operating companies.

For example, the CEO of Shell Netherlands is the former general counsel of Shell UK, but this is not the whole picture.There are drawbacks to lawyers throwing themselves into commercial positions and then turning their backs on the in-house department.

Iain Rubley - an ex-Linklaters lawyer who now works in the legal department of The Body Shop - says there is a risk that by moving over to a more commercial role, 'your legal skills will become less well-honed'.

Mr Rubley cautions that to stay up to scratch a lawyer needs to maintain legal know-how and keep abreast of current cases.Undoubtedly, if lawyers are looking to change their roles, they should be focused on what exactly they want.

Robert Datnow is head of legal at the British Olympic Association (BOA).

Mr Datnow has always been keen on the business of sport, acting as a manager of Thames Valley Harriers while he was still an assistant at City firm Linklaters.He moved to the BOA 'to get more direct contact with sports, and sports people'.

He has not been disappointed.

Giving advice to many British sports associations with small budgets, he is often called on for more general assistance.'At the moment, for example, I'm helping the British associations for volleyball, baseball, softball and fencing to take over an old American air force base in Upper Heyford, in Gloucestershire.

In addition to advising on underleases and planning consents, I've also had to help with the logistics for moving 200 tonnes of sand into the site to create Britain's first indoor beach volleyball pitch.'This general advisory role has expanded, and Mr Datnow is currently political liaison officer for the BOA.

This means that at the forthcoming Olympic games in Sydney, in addition to 'fire-fighting' for the team in the case of any disputes or doping problems, he will also be officially escorting the culture, media and sport secretary Chris Smith and sports minister Kate Hoey to those events where British athletes are competing.Mr Datnow maintains that it is up to lawyers to break out of their pig eon holes if that is what they want to do.

Undoubtedly in the BOA - which employs several medal-holders - a passion for sport helps.

But Mr Datnow says taking responsibility for a more central advisory role is also critical to getting on in business.

He explains: 'You have to break out of the "here are the options - now make the choice" mentality that characterises private practice in the solutions it offers its clients.

You need to play a more integral role.'Marcus Whalen says it all depends on who you are working for.

After training at City firm Keene Marsland, Mr Whalen went in-house with Electrolux.

'There, the in-house legal department had a very specific role: saying yes or no to legal problems.' Mr Whalen moved to Coca Cola Enterprises three years ago, where he says his role has been far more hands-on and commercial.

He works mainly on agreements - involving competition and IT law relating to advertising and promotions.

'Instead of simply setting out what the legal problems are, I also consider strategic and commercial solutions.

Of course, I will outline potential pitfalls, but fundamentally I am thinking commercially.

Legal and commercial decisions are not considered separately here.'But what of the senior management structure? Are commercially minded lawyers welcomed onto the executive board at Coke? 'It would be possible to make a move into a more specifically commercial role, but it would be difficult,' says Mr Whalen.

He says such a move would be regarded as unusual because 'lawyers are perceived as adding more value doing what they specialise in'.Mr Whalen maintains that a lawyer could advance up the commercial ladder, 'but he might have to take a step down on the way; taking a more junior position than that of in-house lawyer in order to get a better breadth of commercial experience.'Having said this, he suggests that lawyers who do make this bold move are well placed.

'The legal department is always a good place to come from, because its one of the few departments - in virtually any business - where you have dealings with just about every other part of the company.

So you're starting off with a better understanding of the whole, which is crucial in commerce.'Although Mr Whalen himself would like to be moving towards a more commercial role in about five years' time, he says that, generally, in-house lawyers prefer 'to stay within the comfort zone' of the in-house department.David Lillicrop, general counsel of the £3 billion turnover global engineering outfit TI Group, is one of those lawyers who has broken through into the senior executive ranks - he joined the main board of the company as a director in 1998.If lawyers do find it hard to move into more commercial roles, Mr Lillicrop suggests they should start by reforming their own approach to business.

'Some lawyers get hung up on process,' he explains.

'When you're negotiating from the commercial side, you need to be quick on your feet, you need to be able to take advantage of any openings that may arise in the meeting.

If you are thinking of the negotiation as a sequence of problems to be rationalised, you can lose opportunities.'Although legal skills are 'definitely transferable to business' according to Mr Lillicrop, he says that many lawyers 'just don't want to be decision-makers'.But in order to break the mould, he says, you need to develop a sense of priorities: 'You need to be able to read the big issues, but there's no reason why lawyers shouldn't be able to do this.'Mr Lillicrop acknowledges that in-house lawyers may have been at a disadv antage in commerce: 'People with financial backgrounds may have found it easier in the past through habit, because people are used to seeing them in a business setting.'Lawyers still need to make an effort to avoid being stereotyped, he says.

But the situation has improved, according to Mr Lillicrop: 'The American model - of having part-legal, part-commercial general counsel - is proliferating in the UK.

The old British prejudice that said that a company secretary should not also be a member of the board is falling away.

The prospects for lawyers wanting to make it onto the boards of companies can only improve now.'