Lalit Bhasin
The Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) has issued notice to the Big Four accounting firms in a complaint filed by Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) president Lalit Bhasin (read order below).
As expected, after we had broken exclusively last week that Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) had been visited by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) about Nirav Modi, the mainstream media, keen on anything NiMo-related at the moment, didn’t take long to jump on the story.
Senior advocate JP Cama called for a mandamus to bulldoze the process of judicial appointments and prevent judicial vacancy of nearly 45% at the Supreme Court, which is expected in the next 11 months.
Indian lawyers listing their profiles on a number of websites, apps and aggregators are guilty of “surrogate advertising”, Bhasin & Co managing partner Lalit Bhasin told the Hindustan Times in an article headlined “Law firms’ body seeks ban on apps, websites offering legal services”, with a nutgraf of “The Bar Council says the practice is equivalent to surrogate advertising”.
At a smaller meeting called by the commerce ministry on 1 September with legal industry stakeholders, including Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf), the Indian National Bar Association (INBA) and Bar Association of India (BAOI), the three Silf members present reiterated their position that foreign law firms, if they were to enter India, shouldn't be allowed to hire Indian lawyers.
The commerce and law ministries are unequivocally in favour of opening up the legal sector to foreign lawyers as soon as possible, reveal the full minutes of the July meeting between ministries and lawyers, though the details of how this will be done remain uncertain.
The Bar Council of India (BCI) is set to meet the government tomorrow to discuss the new draft rules that will enable the entry of foreign law firms into India, reported The Lawyer (full article requires free registration) adding that the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) has already met with its members as a precursor to what SILF called the “inevitable and imminent” opening up of the legal services sector.
The Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) reportedly passed a resolution yesterday opposing the government’s notification that might have been intended to pave the way for foreign law firms to operate in special economic zones (SEZs).
The Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) is not yet sure how to deal with the government’s surprise rule change that might see foreign law firms open up in special economic zones (SEZs) such as the Gujarat International Financial Tec-City (GIFT).
The Bar Council of India (BCI) has invited the Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) to help it fine-tune its proposal to the Law Commission, which was called upon by the Supreme Court to take a comprehensive look at the role of the bar councils’ “failure” and “inaction” in regulating the legal profession.
The Indian National Bar Association (INBA), which released a report last week calling for the entry of foreign law firms this year, has now also been invited to also meet the Government in tomorrow’s talks on legal market liberalisation.
The Bar Association of India (BAOI) has elected Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) president Dr Lalit Bhasin as its new president, according to a press release from the bar body.
The Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) has sent its notes to the commerce ministry in the latest stage of the liberalisation talks.
Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) Sonepat and the Indiana University Center on the Global Legal Profession is hosting a very interesting panel discussion today, which I intend to live blog here.
According to a copy of the minutes of the meeting of Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) members on Monday, the SILF “decided to organise an interaction over dinner” with the recently re-appointed new law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, the minister of state PP Chaudhary and law secretary Suresh Chandra, who is spearheading the liberalisation talks.
This morning’s hotly anticipated meeting between government ministries and several non-governmental organisations, including the Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) and the Bar Council of India (BCI), passed without any principled resistance by stakeholders to the allowing foreign lawyers to practice in India.
The Bar Council of India (BCI) has drafted rules to allow foreign lawyers to practice in India, with the law and justice ministry having invited other ministries and three other organisations to discuss the proposals on Tuesday (5 July).
An American Bar Association (ABA) source told Legally India that the ABA president Paulette Brown had met with the law minister yesterday and talked about liberalisation.
On 25 August the Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) hosted a meeting with journalists and Arun Jaitley, finance and information and broadcast minister.
Can your accountant also assist you on drafting a joint venture agreement? Or is this work best left to a lawyer to check for compliance with various rules and legislation? And what happens when one company drops a nasty legal notice on the former joint venture partner? Is when things get contentious and litigious the line where only a lawyer can step in and take care of business?