The Mumbai chapter of the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) is starting on its drive to become an organisation relevant outside of Delhi, kicking off with a continuing legal education programme for associates.
SILF is launching a four-week series of lectures by prominent partners on topics such as private equity, M&A, tax and capital markets.
Poorvi Chothani (pictured) is the founder of Mumbai start-up firm LawQuest and the convenor of SILF Mumbai. She said: "Delhi is the headquarter of SILF but now the regional chapters are becoming active."
SILF is a not-for-profit organisation funded largely by law firm membership fees and law firm and lawyer infrastructure support.
Delhi has been its traditional hub but in the last year the Bangalore chapter has increased its activities and organised a law firm cricket tournament.
Chothani added that the Mumbai chapter was looking to add value to law firms by promoting interaction between firms and to add value by sharing ideas on management and by improving individual lawyers' legal and non-legal skills.
"Continuing legal education in India is not a mandatory legal requirement so what we are trying to create is an environment of voluntary legal education," she explained.
"We have got feedback from junior lawyer that somewhere there is a gap when they come from law college and the only training they get is training on the job."
She added that the aim was to make the courses as affordable as possible so even students could attend. Prices per participant range between Rs 600 for students and Rs 2,000 for non-SILF member firm lawyers.
The first series of lectures will take place every Friday from today until 11 December and will include partners such as AZB & Partners' Zia Mody, Nishith Desai, J Sagar Associates' (JSA) Somasekhar Sundaresan, DSK Legal's Anand Desai and DM Harish & Co's Shobha Jagtiani.
Amarchand Mangaldas managing partner Cyril Shroff and Nishith Desai were recently elected as the chair and co-chair of SILF Mumbai respectively.
Several law firm partners have told Legally India that SILF membership has not been attractive to their firms because of the body's strong stance against the entry of foreign law firms, which was reaffirmed at its most AGM in Delhi in August.
Chothani responded that while she was personally not opposed to the entry of foreign firms, SILF Mumbai had not formed a view on the matter as it had not yet held its first meeting.
However, she conceded that it was unlikely that the issue would be put to vote in the near future: "I am trying to focus on what SILF can do for the legal body and that's why we are doing these activities.
"We are not trying to change SILF philosophy but within the given framework if we can add to value of the legal practice, SILF is a body we can use."
She added: "SILF has great potential."
SILF Mumbai is planning future panel discussions, seminars and a two-day conference.
SILF Mumbai to foster debate, bring associates legal education
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Few errors ("M Harish & Co." ?!) and wouldn't it be better to give a full schedule of the speakers and on what are they speaking..?
For example:
Zia Mody - Private Equity and Venture Capital Transactions
Nishith Desai - Draft Direct Tax Code
on Friday 20 November 2009
and so on...
Please also make a mention of other speakers too. Its a bit disrespectful to them.
Other than that I'm really glad to see this article up here. Hope the SILF lectures are worth attending. I'll come back and comment on whether they actually were (in my opinion, of course) later at night.
No disrespect was meant, apologies if any was perceived.
Had to draw the line somewhere so only included law firm partner speakers from the list that was available.
If you are interested in finding out more you can email silfmumbai[at]gmail.com
Do let us know what the lecture was like, would be interested to hear!
Best regards,
Kian
Its all good. But if you are mentioning Zia Mody, Nishith Desai, Somasekhar Sunderesan and Anand Desai along with their law firms, it would be pertinent to make a mention of Ashish Ahuja, partner at Wadia Gandhy, giving a lecture on the Companies Bill 2009.
And just to clarify - No, I'm not working in Wadia Gandhy :-)
The Private Equity and Venture Capital Transactions by Zia Mody was excellent. As someone who's worked a bit on these topics, it seemed flawless to me. But for someone who hadn't dealt with these topics ever, it would've been tough to follow. Maybe she could've concentrated only on a few chosen aspects of the field and worked on those. But then again, the presentation was meant for practicing associates and she probably did not expect so many students to turn up.
The Draft Direct Tax Code lecture was something of a bit of a disappointment. I believe Nishith Desai to be tremendously brilliant and I've hold him in the highest regard. But his lecture lacked something. The topic itself was hard to follow for a lot of people. And he spent far too much time criticising the draft code rather than giving an understanding of it. So I was somewhat disappointed with that.
On the whole, the lecture series is off to a great start and next time I'm going to make sure I arrive early for the refreshments! Haha
I would of course have included Ashish Ahuja but he was unfortunately not listed in what must have been an early version of the lecture timetable that I used when writing the article.
i would very much like to attend these lectures and i have mailed SILF Mumbai regarding the same but unfortunately there has be no response.So probably some one can help me with the details or procedure to be followed to attend the same.Awaiting a reply soon.
With Regards,
Siddhartha Desai.
I suggest that proper ground work is done before publishing these articles - and taking interviews of people "only associated" with them. It may be helpful for you to have some of your peeps at the event!
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