Yesterday’s closed-door afternoon meeting between UK justice secretary Kenneth Clarke, Indian law minister Salman Kursheed and Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Ashok Parija stopped short of reaching an agreement on the entry of foreign law firms but the countries would trial cooperation on the legal education front for the next six months.
Clarke and Khursheed both delivered early morning keynote addresses at yesterday’s Delhi seminar on “UK-India cooperation on emerging legal sector issues”, but it is understood that they left at around noon to meet in private.
One lawyer who was present at the seminar said: “They sprung a bit of a surprise – [Kursheed] said he was going to have a closed-door meeting with Ken Clarke and it would be appropriate if the Bar Council president and the Law Society president were also there. What he said was that [they] would together sit down and devise a roadmap for moving forward.”
The Economic Times reported that Khursheed promised Clarke that New Delhi will “put your issues on the fast track” and give decisions quickly and “decisions which have quality”, while the Hindustan Times wrote that the UK and India “agreed to allow the regulators for legal profession of both the sides to work out a mutually acceptable mechanism for the entry of each other’s law firms into the two countries”.
Parija told Legally India: “We’ve told the British, let’s have some initiatives before we get to the entry of foreign lawyers. We suggested exchanges between law students between the two countries, [exchanges of] law deans and training of young lawyers from India in the UK and vice versa.”
“And we could draw a roadmap for [foreigners doing] non-litigation practice in India – their strength is not litigation, ours is litigation. We want reciprocity for us in litigation,” said Parija while adding that such plans were too premature at the moment and in the next six months the academic exchanges would take priority.
He clarified that unlike the BCI’s memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Law Council of Australia, entered into in June 2010 to promote joint ventures primarily in the academic field, no such agreement was signed between Clarke and the Indian representatives yesterday. “These are very early days,” he said.
Tackling the issue of reciprocity would only arise after exchange programmes were put in place in favour of all of the BCI’s three main stakeholders, namely law students, deans of law colleges and the lawyers themselves, according to Parija.
In a UK justice ministry press release, Clarke said: “India is an emerging economic powerhouse, and a key player on the international stage. But in my meetings with influential Indian business people this week I will be making the case that restrictions on international law firms and foreign lawyers are holding back inward investment and growth there. Liberalisation is a vital contributor India’s future economic success, while an India that is more receptive to international trade would be hugely beneficial to the UK as an exporter.”
The meeting was also attended by other representatives from UK and Indian legal regulators, according to PIB.
A pro-liberalisation lawyer present at the seminar commented: “I think this is a good sign: the Bar Council wants to get out of the shadow of the Indian law firm policy on liberalisation – they don’t want to be seen to be purely toeing the line of the law firms and they want to have an independent stand.”
Legally India reported earlier this month that Clarke had vowed to make a “forceful case” for liberalisation on this visit.
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ROTFLMAO!! Joke of the century!
1. It is high time for some honesty in this discussion from our (the Indian) side. Reciprocity already exists. It is clear that it exists on the non-litigation side - people have been taking the QLTT for years. On the litigation front, there is also a clear path available for foreign lawyers to get rights of audience in the UK courts. www.lincolnsinn.org.uk/index.php/joining-the-inn/qualified-foreign-lawyers. As everyone knows, the only way you can become a lawyer in India is if you are Indian or a PIO. So the lack of reciprocity is a tired old myth.
2. In response to 2, there are a number of flourishing Indian CAs and CA firms outside of the Big Four - BMR is an example. Incidentally, the Big Four is populated almost entirely by Indian CAs so I'm not sure why having "Indian" CA firms is necessarily a good thing. There is a level playing field. If you are good, you will do well. Moreover, letting foreign transactional law firms will have no effect on the vast majority of Indian legal practitioners, either because they are litigators or have smaller practices which do not operate in the same fee brackets as the international firms will. It will however have an impact on the top firms, and more importantly, their owning partners or partner families who currently make supernormal profits at the expense of the growth of their other "partners". Everyone knows that this is the group that is most active in keeping foreign law firms out.
3. In almost every major economy where the legal profession has opened up, this has led to an increase in lawyers' salaries, a growth in the amount of work not to speak of exposure to global best practices. The best local firms have adapted to meet the challenge - Gide in France, Garrigues in Spain, etc. Salary increase has also also been the case with CA firms in India after the bad multinationals were let in.
4. Most sectors of the Indian economy (and the economy itself) that have been opened up to international competition have done well. Also, Indians have become leaders of international banks, corporations and consulting firms, because of their merit. This will happen with law firms as well. Indian lawyers will be able to do a much larger amount of international work, which is both interesting, remunerative and good for one's development.
There is nothing for Indian lawyers to fear and much to gain (not the case for most of the top firms). We are intelligent, resourceful and innovative. Give us some competition and exposure and we will succeed. It is time to open up.
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