The lure of old profession helps to heal O'Brien's wounds

Making the jump from practising criminal law to a ministerial career in the Home Office may not seem to be the most obvious career path, but for Mike O'Brien - until earlier this year permanent under-secretary at the Home Office - the transition was painless.A criminal solicitor-advocate for five years until his election to the marginal Labour seat of Warwickshire North in 1992, Mr O'Brien has found his training to be nothing less than a bonus.

'Very often MPs who aren't lawyers tend to be frightened of the law,' he says.

'As with any expertise, there is an assumption by outsiders that there is one way that it should be done, and if an expert tells you that something is the case, non-lawyers tend to accept it.'Having a legal training, and working under Jack Straw - a barrister - at the Home Office, was therefore invaluable.

'We put through a huge amount of legislation during my four years at the Home Office,' he says.

'Although the Home Office lawyers were excellent, because I had a legal background I was able to discuss their advice with them, and come to my own conclusions.' As an example, he describes the construction of the racial violence legislation in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, when 'we were constantly being told by "legal experts" that this couldn't be done.

But we looked at it with Barbara Roche [then immigration minister and a barrister] and realised that in fact it could be.'He makes the point that MPs are making law that has to be eventually interpreted by lawyers, so 'looking at it from a legal angle is vital'.

Despite the fact that 10% of MPs are solicitors or barristers, Mr O'Brien says that 'there should be more lawyers in parliament', although he admits that 'that's probably a rather controversial opinion'.Controversy has become familiar to Mr O'Brien in the past few months, as late last year the Hammond inquiry found that he was likely to be the unfortunate recipient of a phone call from Peter Mandelson enquiring about the progress of Indian tycoon Srichand Hinduja's passport application.

A call that set in motion the chain of events leading to the former Northern Ireland secretary's ignominious departure from government.Mr O'Brien's ministerial career was a casualty of the post-election reshuffle, although various commentators have suggested that he has been made a scapegoat for the Mandelson-Hinduja passport affair.

All Mr O'Brien will say about his future career prospects is that the electorate holds all the cards.

'It is in their hands.

If they decide to make me one of the people rather than a servant of the people, then so be it.'If that does happen, then he is in the fortunate position of having a profession to fall back on, and one that he would be glad to re-enter.

'When I was elected, I surprised myself by missing law,' he admits.

'I initially hoped to have time to do the odd case, but that hasn't happened.' Although with an abundance of long hours, regular lengthy speeches and consorting with the occasional shady character, one might think that criminal law and politics are really not that different after all.Victoria MacCallum