Jeremy Fleming describes the allure of taking to canvas with the Law Society art group

The Law Society's 44-year-old art group is currently staging its annual exhibition at Chancery Lane.

Around 30 of the 90-member group display art at the exhibition.

Each artist displays three or four works, so the entire exhibition consists of around 100 works.

Ken Howard, a painter and member of the Royal Academy, will view the exhibition before awarding a prize for the best work.

But if the exhibition gives the impression that the group is only open to proficient artists, this is not the case, according to Tom Butler, the former shipping partner at City firm Holman Fenwick & Willan who is chairman of the group.

He says: 'Many of the members do not draw or paint, but are just interested in art.

It is probably an even amount of members who actively pursue art to those who are simply interested.

Mostly we are solicitors, but we also accept as members non-solicitor employees at law firms and the spouses of solicitors, some of whom are highly accomplished artists.'

Mr Butler himself did a foundation course in art at Camberwell College of Arts, where he specialised in 'book arts'.

This involves the decoration and design of books.

He says this is appropriate for a lawyer because 'we spend our lives dealing with books'.

The exhibition is the focal point in the group's year, but many other activities are arranged.

Last year, the group visited the London Art Fair, staged a talk on 'the lawyer as artist', went to the Royal Academy's Titian exhibition, visited Mr Howard's Kensington studio, enjoyed a painting expedition to Tuscany, and had a 'sketching and music' evening.

The group's importance is bound to increase as an explosion of interest in art in the City trickles down.

Many of the top firms now boast curators to handle the art that they hang from their walls, with firms such as Clifford Chance and DLA sponsoring graduate art exhibitions and Collyer-Bristow running its own gallery.

When Simmons & Simmons moved into its new City offices two years ago, it was a point of pride that its employees could eat in a staff canteen underneath a specially commissioned Damien Hirst mural painted onto the wall.

Many regional firms are also involved in displaying and supporting art.

Tamar Arnon, the curator of Collyer-Bristow's gallery - which holds about five exhibitions each year - says that working for a gallery owned by a law firm has several benefits.

'There is not the commercial imperative that there would otherwise be on the gallery to survive,' she says.

The gallery is not run on a profit-making basis and this makes its relationship with other galleries in London more co-operative, because Collyer-Bristow is not perceived as a threat, she explains.

The gallery is now ten years old and Ms Arnon says it is widely known among denizens of the art world in London.

'We try to do something completely different with all our exhibitions,' she says, which is another advantage of not being shackled to the commercial imperative to establish a reputation in one field of art.

For the past five years, the gallery has staged a Christmas show in which every painting is sold for 200 and the proceeds all go to charity.

Richard Davidson, another member of the Law Society group, is living proof that art can be more than a hobby for solicitors.

The former partner in Baker & McKenzie's London office decided to retire from law in 1995, aged 48, to go to art school, pursuing a hobby that he had maintained on and off during his 27-year stint at the firm.

After a foundation course at Chelsea College of Art and Design and a three-year fine art degree at Wimbledon School of Art, Mr Davidson embarked on a career as a professional artist.

He has enjoyed some success, having won the BHP small painting award in 1998, exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition last year, and gained a reputation for having a distinct style, which owes no small part to his former career.

Mr Davidson's paintings are mainly all of the accoutrements of businessmen - pens, shirts, shoes and ties - isolated against starkly painted backgrounds.

Mr Davidson says he is not consciously influenced by anyone, but admires Californian pop artist Wayne Thiebaud.

So, is being an artist as stressful as being a lawyer? 'It's different.

It's not entirely easy, and you get worked up a lot, but it is less stressful.'

- To enquire about joining the Law Society's art group, contact Tom Butler, e-mail: ThomasPButler@aol.com.