STEPHEN WARD DISCUSSES THE PROBLEMS FACING SOLICITORS WHO ARE NOW COMBINING THEIR CAREERS WITH BEING AN MPThe difference between being a solicitor and being an MP came home to the 15 new entrants to Parliament after a couple of months.

One evening this month there were six consecutive votes on amendments starting at 11 pm.Solicitors charge by the minute.

This voting -- a meaningless exercise when a government has a majority of 180 -- involved shuffling repeatedly through a crowded lobby for an hour and a half.Andrew Dismore, 42, of Russell Jones & Walker, is the new Labour MP for Hendon.

He recognises voting is a good way for back-benchers to meet ministers, but says: 'There must be a more efficient way than this.'Helen Jones, 42, formerly an assistant solicitor with Manchester firm Eckersley Hope and now newly elected for Labour in Warrington North, likes to keep mornings free for constituency work, but says she cannot do this effectively if she has been up after midnight day after day.The reasons for revolt against the hours are also social.

Clare Ward, 25, a trainee with trades union solicitors Pattinson & Brewer, and the new Labour MP for Watford, says: 'A new generation has come into Parliament.'Mothers do not want to leave their children at home and never see them -- and there are more women MPs now than ever before -- but neither do men.

And the new MPs increasingly have working partners who expect them to share the child care responsibilities.Even if they had been warned about what to expect, solicitors have found the facilities at the Commons a contrast to the basics in any business.Two months into the new Parliament, Alan Hurst, 51, Labour MP for Braintree in Essex and senior partner with law Hurst & Taylor in Westcliff-on-Sea, has only just moved into a 12 sq ft office in the Commons, after sharing temporary accommodation for several weeks.Ms Jones says: 'Even MPs with huge majorities who are confident of winning again have to start again as the pecking order changes and offices are re-allocated.'New MPs have to start from scratch at Westminster and in the constituency.

'We had to find the right helpers, buy fax machines, everything,' says Ms Jones.Even busy high street solicitors who have become MPs have struggled with the volume and urgency of the constituency caseload which begins with the backlog accumulated during the election period.The Parliamentary Labour Party has offered free pagers to all MPs.

Ms Ward is a convert, but other solicitors are carrying with them to Westminster the lawyer's traditional conservatism about technology.

Mr Hurst has turned down the offer.

'I suppose that makes me appear to be some kind of dinosaur,' he concedes.The tidal wav e of the Labour majority has swept some unsuspecting solicitors into Parliament, leaving little time to make a smooth transition.Michael Foster, 51, was elected to Hastings and Rye thanks to the peculiarities of first-past-the-post with only 34.4% of the vote, and with a swing from the Conservatives of more than 18%.

In 1992 Labour came third.Mr Hurst only thought he would overturn a 13,000 Conservative majority in the final weeks before the poll.

He will still do some criminal court work one morning a week, and some supervision of the business at weekends.

'But I am not running any cases,' he says.

The small firm he works for has recently hired a new solicitor in Basildon to absorb the extra workload.Ms Ward had the 93rd most winnable seat, and while she was always confident, she expected a majority closer to 1,000 than 6,000.As a trainee Ms Ward was due to qualify in November.

She is now in discussions with her firm to find a way to complete qualification.Others who won safe seats scarcely had more time to tidy their affairs.Ms Jones, for example, only heard in April that she had been selected to contest Warrington North.

'It was straight into campaigning.

I simply had to hand over all my cases,' she recalls.

Ms Jones left Eckersley Hope when she won her seat.

'I believe being an MP is a full-time job,' she says.The new MPs share differing views of the relevance of being lawyers.

Humfrey Malins, re-entering Parliament as Conservative MP for Woking after losing Croydon North-West in 1992, and a partner with Tuck & Mann in Surrey, has sat as a Crown Court recorder and an acting metropolitan stipendiary magistrate since then.

He says he has gained more criminal judicial experience in the past 15 years than any other MP.Mr Hurst, who is senior partner in a mainly legal aid criminal practice, thinks the knowledge of a hands-on solicitor will be helpful in informing forthcoming legislation on legal aid.

'Many MPs, including some who have been solicitors in the past, have not understood the working lives of solicitors in the 1990s,' he says.Ms Jones, on the other hand, says she now regards herself 'not as a solicitor sitting in the Commons, but as the MP for Warrington North'.Mr Dismore was on the executive of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, and had lobbied ministers and briefed the Labour front bench in opposition.

But in the Commons he insists he will use his knowledge of the legal professions to represent clients' needs.

'I'm not getting involved in special pleading for solicitors,' he says.Several solicitor MPs think their legal background is relevant to the surgery part of an MP's work as they are used to dealing with people's problems.

Mr Foster has taken soundings around Westminster about setting up a Labour MP's solicitor group, but it is unclear how many eligible members will join.They could all learn from Ms Ward's experience that neither her legal expertise, nor the way she performs her duties as an MP, will be important to everybody.Ms Ward was listed to ask one of Tony Blair's first Prime Minister's Questions, on the dangers of alcopop ice lollies.

When she got back to her Commons office, one of the quality newspapers rang.

'Tell me,' the journalist asked, 'why have you changed your hairstyle?'JONATHAN AMES TALKS TO DEFEATED SOLICITOR MPS ABOUT THEIR PAST DUAL ROLES, AND WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR THEMSolicitors did not escape the carnage visited on the Tory party in the last general election.

Eleven solicitor MPs went down in electoral flames on 1 May -- all of them Conservatives.In the list of casualties were some big names, including whips, junior ministers and one former cabinet minister.

Three more Tory solicitor MPs -- Roy Thomason (Bromsgrove), Anthony Grant (Cambridgeshire South West) and Nicholas Baker (Dorset North) will also not be returning to the corridors of the Palace of Westminster, having stood down through retirement.

Only two Labour solicitor MPs will not be going back to Parliament, having also retired: Gordon Oakes (Halton) and John Fraser (Norwood).So who were the solicitor MPs who fell victim to the democratic process, and what are their plans now they have been shunned by the electorate? For the record, the full list is: Jonathan Evans (Brecon & Radnor), Alistair Burt (Bury N), David Sumberg (Bury S), Gregory Knight (Derby N), Spencer Batiste (ELmet), Timothy Kirkhope (Leeds NE), Peter Butler (Milton Keynes NE), Richard Alexander (Newark), Walter Sweeney (Vale of Glamorgan), David Hunt (Wirral W) and Gerald Malone (Winchester).Of those who spoke to the Gazette during the last few days, most had taken defeat on the chin and were looking forward to returning to private practice.One of the better known names never really left private practice in the first place.

David Hunt -- who was the member for Wirral or Wirral West between 1976 and 1997 -- has always retained a practising role at City law firm Beechcroft Stanleys.

Nonetheless, he reached high levels in government.

As Secretary of State for Wales (1990-93), Secretary of State for Employment (1993-94) and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1994-95), Mr Hunt was the only solicitor in the Cabinet for the last 20 years.'The law has always been my profession,' says Mr Hunt, who is adamant that he never wanted to be viewed as a full-time, professional politician.

Each step up the ministerial ladder was taken after consultation with his partnership.

'It is a great tribute to the partners at Beachcroft Stanleys that I was able to remain in the partnership while being in the Cabinet for four years,' he says.

'Too few professional partnerships would let their partners give their time to public service.'Mr Hunt's partners drew the line two years ago as far as Cabinet participation was concerned.

They wanted him to take over as senior partner, succeeding Law Society Council member Andrew Kennedy, but the one condition was that Mr Hunt stood down from the Cabinet.

However, the partnership was perfectly happy for its new senior partner to stand in the May General Election.

Unfortunately for Mr Hunt, the voters were not so enthused, overturning his 11,000 majority.At the other end of the majority spectrum was Jonathan Evans, the parliamentary secretary at the Lord Chancellor's Department in 1995-96.

Mr Evans -- who also held ministerial positions in the Welsh office and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) -- is the former managing partner at Cardiff firm Leo Abse & Cohen.Mr Evans, with a majority of only 130, clearly anticipated defeat for some time.

He says he is likely to return to private practice in London instead of Wales.

But he also still hankers for Westminster, saying he would like to return to Parliament although he is not looking for an early by-election.Other solicitor MP casualties with significant government experience are Timothy Kirkhope, a Home Office junior minister from 1995 to the election; Gregory Knight, a former government whip and minister at the DTI; Gerald Malone, a former Department of Health minister; and Alistair Burt, the former minister for disabled people at the Department of Social Security.Mr Kirkhope, a former partner at Newcastle firm Wilkinson Maughan, has already set up in London and Surrey in sole practice after seeing his 4,244 majority disappear.

Currently focusing on small business commercial law, Mr Kirkhope aims to use his experience as a licensing and gambling deregulator at the Home Office in pitching his services to several larger commercial organisations.'The legal profession benefits from people who have ministerial experience,' says Mr Kirkhope.

Not long after the general election defeat, he found himself in a magistrates' court acting for an acquaintance on a motoring matter.

'My advocacy was better than ever before because of my experience in speaking before Parliamentary committees,' he maintains.Gregory Knight, on the other hand, points out that he has not had a holiday for the last four years.

For the next few weeks, he ie going to contemplate his future, although he has reapplied to the Law Society for his practising certificate, so a return to the law looks likely.Another solicitor former MP who had already booked the office removal men well before the polling day itself was Walter Sweeney, a consultant with Gordon Kemp & Co in Barry.

Perched on a majority of 19 votes -- the narrowest in the last Parliament -- Mr Sweeney was reconciled for some time to saying good-bye to Westminster.Now he will set up in sole practice in Yorkshire where he will do a mixture of contentious and non-contentious work.

Will he miss the cut and thrust of Parliamentary life? 'I won't miss being in a small minority, sitting on the opposite side staring at those benches swimming with Labour MPs,' he says.

'That would be horrific.'That view is supported by Mr Sweeney's former Westminster colleague, Peter Butler.

A former partner and now consultant with Oxfordshire firm Linnells, Mr Butler is also a former chairman of the Trainee Solicitors Group.

He will stay with the firm now that Parliament will not be occupying his time, focusing on commercial and planning law.Although keen to get back to Westminster -- and having lost by only 240 votes, Mr Butler is the defeated solicitor who came the closest to holding his seat -- he too did not relish the idea of being part of such a tiny opposition.

'Being in opposition is one thing, but facing a rabble of accidental MPs with nothing to do is quite another.'