The past year has seen an increasing number of solicitors abandoning the in-house legal departments of local authorities for jobs in private practice.

A backlash against appointing lawyers to top jobs in councils, combined with the after-effects of the compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) regime, has made private sector law firms the preferred career choice of local government solicitors.The Law Society's Local Government Group (LGG) is so concerned about this trend that it is hosting a debate about the future of solicitors in local government at its annual weekend school next month.

LGG chair Phillip Thomson, who is the head of legal services at Essex County Council, says: 'Traditionally, becoming a chief executive was the pinnacle of a solicitor's career in local government.

Now, solicitors are being appointed less often than in the past.'There's a general view among council officials and elected members that the approach of solicitors is too narrowly professional.

Some think solicitors don't have the breadth of experience and vision a chief executive needs.

If solicitors are going to be confined to a restricted professional role as heads of legal services, the salaries that are being offered for this post mean that many good solicitors will leave.'The LGG is not arguing that lawyers necessarily make better chief executives than people from other backgrounds, but we do think the trend has serious implications.'In the past, the administrative heads of local authorities -- the town clerks -- were required by statute to be lawyers.

When the position of chief executive was created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, nearly all the posts were filled by solicitors.

But the next wave of appointments saw chief executives with financial backgrounds come to the fore, and 10 years ago demand increased for those with managerial, rather than professional, qualifications.One of the speakers at the LGG's debate next month is Nick Dobson, who was until recently chief solicitor at Doncaster Borough Council and is now head of local government law in the Leeds office of Pinsent Curtis.

'Lawyers are somewhat out of fashion in local government,' he explains.

'There's a widespread belief that, at their worst, they can be at the nit-picking end of the spectrum.

After a revolution there's always some punishment.

Members used to be frightened of the town clerks, who held the key to everything they could and could not do.

Now that lawyers are no longer universally at the top table, those who felt subject to their power are biting back.'The large urban councils have been particularly reluctant in recent years to appoint solicitors to the top management position of chief executive.

In a recent article on top local government lawyers, Local Government Chronicle described one of those featured as part of a 'new breed of lawyers who are keen to help the political aims of the council rather than hinder them'.

This perception that solicitors hinder the process of political decision-making is typical of the attitude of local government towards lawyers, an attitude which is increasingly favouring the promotion of people from non-professional, managerial backgrounds.One of these people is Alastair Robertson, honorary secretary of the Association of Local Authority Chief Executives (ALACE) and chief executive of Three Rivers District Council in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire.

Prior to his appointment, Mr Robertson worked in the housing and technical services departments, and he has a management qualification.He says: 'Even in areas where councils keep lawyers, they are increasingly taking on broad consumer concepts.

We're now moving to a position where what matters is whether the individual has the competencies for the job, not their professional background.'ALACE's sister organisation, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, recently identified four key areas in which chief executives need to develop their skills: working within the political regime; leading, changing and developing the organisation; maintaining personal perspective and self knowledge; and developing effective external relationships.Mr Thomson is quick to point out that solicitors who have made their careers in local government are well placed to develop both political and managerial acumen.

'For many solicitors, working in local government is an opportunity to gain a wide experience of working as part of a large operation,' he says.

'It is this which makes them stay in the public sector.

As a solicitor in local government, you are working with all parts of the authority -- social services, education and housing.

You get a broad overview of the authority, and as you move up you tend to work closely with the political process, as all the committees and elected members need legal advice.

Solicitors on the career ladder are involved in general management by the time they get to the stage where they are eligible to become chief executives.'However, solicitors are not simply being sidelined in local government because of a perceived lack of extra-legal skills.

They have also been forced by the CCT regime -- which was conceived by the Conservative government in the late 1980s and phased out in favour of 'best value' by Labour -- to learn new skills which have brought them much closer in outlook to their private practice colleagues.

The need to compete with private practice firms in order to retain their local authorities as clients has caused a permanent sea change in the way local government lawyers run their in-house departments.Catherine Parkinson, president of the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors (ACSeS), and the director of legal and administrative services at Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, explains: 'CCT tried to separate the roles of lawyers as professionals and lawyers as local government officers.

Because solicitors began to focus on purely legal issues, they looked for opportunities for their own career development in private practice.'CCT promised a rich stream of work to law firms, so the private sector turned its attention to local government.

'Many private sector firms are looking to g o into the local government market and are keen to recruit senior officers from local government.

We have seen an exodus of lawyers from local government.

Some very good people have been lost,' says Ms Parkinson.City firms Eversheds and Pinsent Curtis and Birmingham firm Wragge & Co are known to be particularly interested in recruiting in-house lawyers from local government.

Wragge & Co now counts former ACSeS president Peter Keith-Lucas among its partners.Mr Dobson admits: 'I've had a few people expressing interest to me about a private sector career.

CCT forced local government lawyers to think in more commercial ways; the mutual suspicions between the public and private sectors are disappearing now.

One thing that the best value initiative has done is to encourage closer liaison between private and public legal practice.

Lawyers are being actively encouraged to enter into informal and formal partnerships, and Pinsent Curtis is talking to one or two local authorities about this at the moment.'Best value and, to a certain extent, the private finance initiative allow fluid movement of local government lawyers between the public and private sectors.

This is achieved through secondments and even by lawyers working a few days a week for a local authority and spending the remainder of their time with its best value partner firm.

Ms Parkinson confirms: 'We're looking at joint working partnerships in which we can use experts from the private sector to provide in-house lawyers and thereby gain experience working side by side.'Mr Thomson sees this fluidity as one way in which solicitors can find satisfying career paths in local government if they find the traditional path to the chief executive's office is still blocked.

The Local Government Bill, which was published last November and is currently making its way through Parliament, is likely to open other routes.

Mr Thomson says: 'The Bill gives local authorities wider powers to trade.

In theory, their legal departments could act for members of the public off the street.

I think it will mean that, when the powers come in, in-house legal departments will work for a number of private clients who are public bodies, for example the police and the fire service.'Closer working with the private sector might help to offset the restricted professional roles which lawyers are currently being offered in local government.

The LGG needs to help its members explore the opportunities which public/private partnerships and the wider powers to trade might bring, thereby improving the career opportunities for solicitors in local government.'Mr Dobson stresses: 'Local government lawyers must reposition themselves as strategic problem-solvers.' He adds: 'The best lawyers in local government have all the skills required to be chief executives.'One solicitor who made it to the top job is Felix Harley, chief executive of Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council.

Mr Harley says: 'I think lawyers can make excellent chief executives and that there are still good career opportunities for solicitors in local government.

But you need to be ready and willing to move between local authorities in order to progress.'