Solicitor Rebecca Hilsenrath explains the journey that a bill takes before becoming law

Diary: committee tomorrow at 9.10am.

Briefing minister at 3pm.

Speaking notes on 12 amendments still to clear.

Client on the phone - what do we think is behind the opposition amendment? Can I provide the minister with a question-and-answer sheet on the impact of bankruptcy on student debt? And can I contribute to a briefing in response to the Sunday Times article on the Higher Education Bill?

Working on a Bill is one of the highs of being a government lawyer.

It is enormously exciting, hard work and stressful, and at the same time it lends an added dimension to the work of advising government.

Advising on legislation to which you contributed gives a particular understanding of how and why law is made, and you will never hear the name of that law again without feeling that in some small way it belongs to you.

The added excitement is of seeing your work in progress all over the front page of the newspapers.

Primary legislation takes time - probably, in the case of the current Higher Education Bill, 18 months from instructions to Royal Assent for the actual Bill alone.

As I write, the Bill is in the House of Commons' committee stage, the remaining provisions of the 2002 Education Act will be brought into effect in the summer, and policies are being canvassed for inclusion in a possible education Bill in a future parliamentary session.

Bills are drafted by parliamentary counsel, while administrative colleagues provide the policy.

Our job, as government lawyers, is to liaise between the two.

My particular brief for the Higher Education Bill is a clause protecting student debt from the effects of bankruptcy.

The production of a clause that is legally sound and echoes policy will demand everything from legal analysis to common sense.

It may also be necessary to liaise with other government departments - in this case, the Department of Trade and Industry.

I have also had to consider human rights, whether the provision had retrospective effect, European law and devolution - all common themes in drafting legislation.

Drafting the clause itself is an iterative process that is often begun at a leisurely rate and speeds up dramatically towards introduction into Parliament.

Once the Higher Education Bill was introduced, we were off into the world of debates.

Opposition amendments were tabled and administrators had to produce speaking notes and notes on amendments for the minister, for clearance (usually to extremely tight deadlines) by lawyers.

Amendments can be explorative, wrecking or a genuine attempt to produce a compromise provision.

Government amendments may also be produced.

At this stage, our job is nominally to ensure that the minister's speaking notes are legally sound.

However, we often find ourselves adding arguments and refining style to reinforce a point.

Then comes the committee itself, which is analogous to appearing in court, with rather less well-defined working hours.

Programming motions, agreed at the start, determine the hours that the Commons' committee will sit, but they may be open ended, and Lords debates always are.

We may end up coming home in the small hours, which can add to the glamour, or it can just add to the tension and the taxi fares.

The Commons' committee rooms are like a miniature of the House of Commons, whereas the House of Lords' debates take place on the floor of the chamber, with all the attendant pomp and ceremony.

Whether you enjoy these occasions depends largely on whether you get a kick out of the atmosphere and whether you thrive on pressure and adrenalin.

There are many conventions about who can do what, where you can stand, what you can drink (water) or eat (nothing).

Only the Bill manager is permitted to pass notes to ministers, although they are cleared by lawyers and policy teams first.

However, informally, facial expressions can also play their part under the pressure of the moment.

I once found myself short-cutting the entire process by catching the minister's eye during a long opposition speech, made on a mistaken assumption about the legal effect of the relevant provision.

I simply shook my head vigorously, and mouthed 'no'.

If amendments are agreed in the House of Lords, the process of 'ping-pong' begins, to ensure that the Lords and Commons have passed the Bill in identical terms.

At this stage, the Commons considers the Bill on the floor of the chamber, and you sit in the advisers' box and think like everyone else how small the chamber is, and you ring up your friends as soon as you leave and tell them you're on television, just behind the prime minister.

Once the Bill gains Royal Assent, much of the real work begins.

Commencement orders must be made to bring provisions into effect, and regulations made to implement enabling powers.

They will be different to any other regulations you work on, because you are implementing your own clauses.

This is making law; this is what it's all about.

Rebecca Hilsenrath is a government lawyer in the Department for Education and Skills