Mint

In today’s edition of Mint: The National Law School of India University (NLSIU) Bangalore may face a funding gap of Rs. 2 crore this fiscal year after the Karnataka state government cut its grant by 50% from Rs. 4 crore last year. NLSIU was established in 1987 as the first of India’s flagship national law universities (NLUs).

In today’s edition of Mint: The turf war on legal education between the human resources development (HRD) ministry and the Bar Council of India (BCI) remains unresolved.

Mint legal correspondent Nikhil Kanekal argues in today’s legal page in the paper that the hearing the Supreme Court is waging against the media, is fundamentally unfair and misunderstands the trade of journalism, as lawyers and judges are often wont to.

Exclusive in today’s Mint: Kochhar & Co has secured a Japanese Gaikokuho-Jimu-Bengoshi (registered foreign lawyer) licence and opened an office in Tokyo with one Indian lawyer, while also hoping for permission to open a stand-alone local law office in Dubai.

Exclusive in today’s Mint: Pramod Rao, ICICI Bank’s general counsel (GC) of more than seven years, will join young law firm IndusLaw as an equity partner to set up its Mumbai office.

In today’s edition of Mint: On the morning of 10 August 2011, senior lawyer Harish Salve looked upset as he entered Chief Justice of India (CJI) S.H. Kapadia’s courtroom, holding a newspaper that had published an article on a case he was arguing in the Supreme Court.

In today’s edition of Mint: A litigious culture does not handicap economic growth, fresh research shows, debunking the widely held view that a high litigation rate creates an environment hostile for business and slows decision-making.

Mint-LI: The number of pending cases at India’s debt recovery tribunals (DRT) has increased by almost 70% in about a year, with the economic slowdown affecting the repaying capacity of borrowers and thus worsening the asset quality of banks.

Mint exclusive: The Bar Council of India has retained the power to recognize law schools across India, as it emerged from a meeting with the ministry of human resource development (HRD) on Tuesday.

Mint column: Lawyers should be the noble and independent servants of justice, the courts and their clients. Finding lawyers who do all three of those things is the exception, rather than the rule.

For starters, Indian clients have very little, if any, recourse against lawyers who give them bad, negligent or harmful legal advice, as explained in today’s Mint feature. But that is just the tip of lawyers’ legal immunity iceberg.

In today’s edition of Mint: Legally India reveals the conundrum of how legal liability insurance has managed to catch on among India’s bigger law firms, despite no one being able to remember any lawyer ever getting sued for negligent advice.

A corollary of the Rule of Law is that legislation with retrospective effect is highly dubious, argues Kian Ganz. The latest budget proposals to tax offshore transactions going back to 1962, is a worrying sign of the kind of country India wants to be.

LI-Mint Exclusive: Legal process outsourcing (LPO) and intellectual property (IP) management firm CPA Global Ltd, which is being fully acquired by UK-based Cinven Partners Llp for an estimated $1.45 billion (Rs 7,135 crore), has internally restructured the LPO business unit that failed to hit growth targets in India and saw headcount reductions and senior executives’ departure.

In today’s edition of Mint: Legally India reveals Cyril and Shardul Shroff’s, and Boston Consulting Group’s masterplan to take the firm to the next level of a Rs 1,000 crore ($203m) turnover, while securing the future of future generations of the family.

The Vodafone tax case will not just be remembered for being one of the biggest in Indian history, but also for cementing the reputations of a raft of lawyers at the top of their game and others who are rapidly getting there.

Click here to read about how lawyers like Harish Salve, Rohinton Nariman, Dutt Menon Dunmorrsett (DMD) and others fought the case, exclusively in today’s Mint.

Mint’s Nikhil Kanekal argues in today’s edition of Mint that the Bar Council of India (BCI) should be stripped of most of its powers and replaced with an independent regulators who can better oversee legal education and the noble profession.

Aunty and Uncle are taking a break this week, but Legally India editor Kian Ganz shares his opinion in today’s Mint on whether there is any point for an Indian lawyer to do an LLM abroad. Also covered is Gap Yah, pathology and how a Harvard LLM can make you more attractive to the opposite sex.

Click through to read the rest.

Exclusive: A few years ago, Indian lawyers who took a top LLM in the US were inundated with job offers from prestigious US and international law firms. Many accepted. But in 2011 only five out of 60 students got such a ticket. Have $70,000 US LLMs just become a way for colleges to cash in on Indian students? Find out why the Brazilians seem to fare better than the Indians.

Mint exclusive: India’s corporate law firms advised on fewer and smaller mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the 2011 calendar year than in 2010, which affected revenues but still kept firms such as AZB & Partners, Amarchand Mangaldas, Khaitan & Co, J Sagar Associates (JSA) and Desai & Diwanji busy with a lion’s share of work.