Law and Legal Expert

I recently returned from the North American South Asian Bar Association (Nasab) conference. Of all the sessions I attended during the three-day event by far the most thought provoking and certainly it has triggered the most intense and combative question and answer session focused on the pros and cons of the opening of Indian legal services to foreign law firms. The position as it is right now is that as a lawyer in India is governed by the law on lawyers from 1961. Foreign law firms are simply not engage in the practice of law in India.

Over the last decade we have seen in the western legal community look to find more creative ways to circumvent these restrictions. A number of large multinational accounting firms have set up offices in India and are clearly providing legal services to its customers, which employs a large number of Indian lawyers. Several foreign law firms have â???? Liaison???? office (which is allowed under current legislation) in India, while others have developed affiliations with Indian law firms. We have also seen the last few years the dramatic development of the legal process outsourcing industry. Offshore Legal Process Outsourcing company working alongside U.S. and UK law firms in strict accordance with those restrictions on unauthorized practice of law by providing a???? Legal aid servicesâ???? to its customers as the U.S. and UK Law Firms ultimately assume full responsibility for.

The esteemed panel of this fascinating session included one of the founders of Nasab organization, Mukesh Advani of Zenith India Lawyers, Jaipat Jain, partner at Lazare Potter & Giacovas Kranjac LLP and Yusuf H. Safdari Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw of and Pittman LLP.

There have been finding trips to Britain by prominent organizations including the All India Bar Council, memorandum of understanding concluded between the Bar Council of India and the law societies in Britain, Australia and China and a bilateral working group on legal framework of services by the respective governments in the U.S. and India. The Times of India also commented on Friday, March 9, 2007 that one???? Indiaâ???? S lucrative legal services market may finally be opened up to foreign law firms at the end of the year. Â ????< br />
On the face of mounting pressure on the Indian government to open the market to foreign law firms looks increasingly exponentially. To the untrained eye the liberalization of the market is imminent. It is obvious to me that this is a somewhat naa ¸ ve point of view and that it will not need any major â???? In-houseâ???? changes before the foreign law firms have the right to formally establish the shop in India.

The main reason why there are legal barriers in place is because of the perceived inability of domestic Indian companies to compete with large foreign firms would enter the market once deregulation. The consensus among those who are reluctant to open up the market is that the best talent will be swallowed up by foreign companies. This will have a devastating effect on domestic companies that simply do not have the financial muscle to compete.

Is this an accurate picture of the situation in the Indian legal market? To answer this question it is important to have an understanding of the constraints as domestic firms and why there is this perception that they can not compete with their American and British counterparts.

Currently, Indian law firms are not allowed to have more than 20 partners. Indian law firms is also forbidden to practice any form of advertising whatsoever. This includes a ban on websites, brochures, television, radio, etc. In addition, law firms may not have some form of financial assistance in the form of bank loans. Because of these limitations is a sense among many that Indian law firms will simply not be able to compete with the big American and British companies as they do not operate on equal terms.

Mukesh Advani advocated a gradual liberalization of the market by first persuading the Indian government to relax restrictions on domestic companies. This would give domestic firms time to increase in size and revenue in readiness for opening the market for foreign companies.

The problem as I see it is that this argument assumes that foreign firms is stationary when we know that this is clearly not the case. The company is examining the establishment liaison offices in India right now, or those who have already done so, is the magic circle firms from the UK and AM Law top 50 companies from the U.S., these companies are growing exponentially and will continue to do so. The other difficulty with Mukesh???? Argument is that as many domestic based Indian lawyers I spoke to the Convention on the reality of the Indian legal sector is somewhat different from what one might anticipate given the constraints that they currently operate. Lawyers all over the world inevitably educated to both initially locate and work through loopholes. This is what they do in India. Domestic companies to structure themselves in a traditional one???? West???? fashion, with trainees, junior employees, employees, partners and equity partners. It is not just doing this, but they also socialize with other domestic firms, and conclude relationships with companies in the U.S.

There was also a hot discussion on the point that the pool of qualified and talented lawyers can work on American and British issues somewhat limited. My experience with LawScribe and offshore legal process in general contradict that point of view and I was vocal in putting forward my own position in the question time that followed. India is second only to the U.S. in the number of qualified consultants to around 600 000 with about 75,000 graduates each year, new lawyers. Now I agree that not all of this code has come from the country???? A good law schools or are of sufficiently high standard to work with U.S. and UK issues. But not all law-school graduates here in the U.S. or Britain is of the highest caliber. I worked at times, completely together in exasperation trainee solicitors and fully qualified lawyers in the UK wondering where on earth they had???? Developed???? their legal writing skills. I think there is a large pool of talented individuals, graduated from top law schools in India, with the right training and supervision is more than capable of working with U.S. and UK issues in the offshore legal process outsourcing industry. When the market eventually opened their lawyers will be familiar with U.S. and UK law and the opportunity to work for these companies directly if they wish.

What I came away with one overriding impression was that despite the many articles, memoranda of understanding and agreements between governments that this is not something that will happen overnight. What I think will happen is that the U.S. and UK companies will continue to enter into relationships with Indian law firms and legal outsourcing companies. The Indian government when the time comes to relax the laws on domestic firms, but this will take time.

In a few brief research I undertook prior to attending the meeting I came across an article entitled: â???? India may open the door to foreign practices in licensing agreements ????. Given my reference earlier to the Times of India article from March 2007 would be forgiven for believing that this second quote was taken from another article written this year or possibly last year. This article was actually published in the British Law Society Gazette on 6 July 2001. In at least six years now, we have seen articles that are written, fact finding missions carried out by the major parties, memoranda of understanding and agreements between India and the United States and Britain

Are we really a few steps closer to the legal opening of this large market? What I know is that the provision of offshore legal support services from Indian consultants to U.S. and UK law firms and companies will continue to flourish. Indian law firms will only increase examine ways to circumvent restrictions on their practices and U.S. and UK law firms will continue to include a variety of relationships both internally and agreements with their Indian counterparts, and the legal process outsourcing companies.

Although the legislation has not yet changed we see before our eyes the real liberalization of the Indian legal market. The legal landscape in India is very different to what it looked like five years ago, and with or without legislative changes it will look very different in another 5 years.