PASCAL QUINT, general counsel to EuroDisney, looks slightly taken aback. "So, who's your favourite Disney character, then?" an eager law student has asked, as he tucks into garlic mushrooms in a Galway hostelry.

Sucker punched, Quint reels slightly before rallying.

"I don't really have one," he confesses, to the sound of earth rearranging itself as Uncle Walt turns in his grave.

"But you must have one," comes the reply, not unreasonable given the fact that Quint had earlier worn a loud Mickey Mouse tie while addressing a gathering of UCG law students in the college. Quint hums a bit and then nominates Goofy, "because he has character".

It is probably safe to say that this was the first time EuroDisney's senior legal adviser had been confronted in this manner, but it is increasingly an everyday occurrence for UCG's corporate law students to confront the best legal minds of the business world with unusual and, sometimes, awkward questions.

Under the Alternative Careers in Law lecture series, organised by the university's faculty of law, some top company general counsels have found themselves in a position roughly similar to that of Monsieur Quint, as they attempt to pass on impressions of their experiences to young law students.

While the dinner table discussion had its lighter moments, its principal aim was to offer the five select students in attendance an insight into the day to day work of a topflight general counsel. Quint, in common with all of the general counsels who have participated in the programme so far, was admirably frank with the students, talking of legal wrangles, intellectual property and the challenge of ensuring that the European arm of the Disney empire has all the legal protection it could need.

"IT'S ONE THING to have attractive courses and another to show students the wider horizon, says Denis Driscoll, chairperson of the Alternative Careers lecture series and former dean of the faculty of law.

"We needed to show commercial wisdom by bringing in corporate lawyers working at the cutting edge."

Already this year general counsels from Cable & Wireless, L'Oreal and Unilever have all arrived on the UCG campus and spent time with both faculty and staff over a number of days. They form part of a veritable pilgrimage of legal experts to the UCG campus, attracted by the promise of a break in Connemara and a programme in which many of their peers have already participated.

THE GUESTS ARE not solely from the business field: the students have also been visited by general counsels for Greenpeace and Amnesty International, an indication of the importance the faculty places on human rights issues. It publishes the Irish Human Rights' Yearbook and is holding a series of lectures on "Freedom of Speech in Europe" next year. Four of its students have been placed in the UN Human Rights Centre in Geneva.

"When the general counsels are here, we try to maximise the student opportunity to drain them of wisdom," Driscoll says.

This means a wide range of activities for the visitor: a lecture for students with the opportunity to ask questions later; an informal discussion over coffee; a separate session for faculty staff; a dinner over which a select group of students can find out the advantages and disadvantages of corporate law (as well as more esoteric facts like one's preference for a vaguely dog like cartoon character over a large eared mouse) and, finally, drinks with the rest of the young legal eagles, sponsored by the Dublin law firm A & L Goodbody.

"The consequence is that our young students now have a visitor coming in every three weeks from the world's top companies and staying for four days," Driscoll says. "Down the road, they are going to be wiser than any graduates coming out of Irish colleges with traditional law degrees."

The corporate law degree programme began in 1993, with the intention of providing students with the essential elements of a law degree combined with a foreign language and commercial knowledge. Its first graduates emerged this year.

The focus is on academic preparation for openings in industrial, commercial and financial employment as legal advisers, corporate counsels or even managers and executives. In addition to the usual areas efforts, EU law, company law and ethics, students also study a range of business options, including accountancy, economics, industrial relations and management information systems. In effect, it gives students a glimpse of the possibilities beyond the traditional legal directions of the Bar or a solicitor's office.

"In Ireland there are two traditional things to do with a law degree: either go to the Bar or a law firm, but now thousands of people are working in house with multinationals," says Driscoll. Around 50 per cent of young people leave the Bar by their seventh year, an indication of both the pressure involved and the difficulties young barristers experience in earning a reasonable living.

In general, in house work is less stressful than the Bar, but only 10 to 15 per cent of law graduates in Ireland express an interest in moving into in house work. By contrast, over 60 per cent of corporate law graduates consider this area.

BACK AT THE dinner table, Quint has overcome his initial surprise at the popping of the character question and, following a general discussion of EuroDisney and its current legal ins and outs, he expresses his admiration of what he terms the "unique" programme offered by UCG.

"It's great that you have the opportunity to listen to me, and to other more intelligent people from different companies," he remarks modestly.

These discussions of in house law have had mixed results, judging by some of the responses from the assembled students.

"I always wanted to do in house law, but I'm a bit turned off it now," one first year student remarks to Quint. "You've opened my eyes for me, really. It's positive, in a negative sort of way." Quint seems to appreciate the irony.

According to Eoin McHugh, a corporate law graduate now studying for his LL B, in house law represents "a long term alternative", since students still have to qualify as solicitors, but it is an alternative nonetheless. "The course leaves you open at the end to choose business or law," he says. "The lectures show you that in house lawyers do exist."