Hello! I'm just getting into law school this year! .
International Law and specifically Public/Private International Law were one of the reasons that influenced me to take up Law.
I'm well aware that one must not make the mistake of choosing specializations this early and rather intern at various locations to decide what field suits you the best, but I was just curious to know, is International Law a viable field in India? or is it more oriented towards academia?
Another thing that raised this question was the recent move of the Bar Council of India which recently allowed Foreign Law Firms to operate in India, but only for non litigious matters not concerning Indian laws and regulations.
Chapter 4, Para 8(2)(ii) and (iii) states
(ii) providing legal expertise/advise and appearing as a lawyer for a person, firm, company, corporation, trust, society etc. who/which is having an address or principal office or head office in a foreign country in any international arbitration case which is conducted in India and in such arbitration case “foreign law may or may not be involved;
(iii) providing legal expertise/advise and appearing as a lawyer for a person, firm, company, corporation, trust, society etc. who/which is having an address or principal office or head office in the foreign country of the primary qualification in proceedings before bodies other than Courts, Tribunals, Boards, statutory authorities who are not legally entitled to take evidence on oath, in which knowledge of foreign law of the country of the primary qualification is essential;
The BCI also released a Press Release 4 days ago clarifying that
1) Foreign lawyers and law firms should be allowed to advise their clients only on foreign law and international law.
2)They will only provide advisory work on such laws to their foreign clients.
Now I had quite a few questions regarding this
1)Would this mean Alternate Dispute Resolution would be one of the primary areas where such law firms would primarily deal with?
2) Would an LLM degree in International Law have value in the coming few years?
3) Keeping in the mind the fact that foreign law firms can only operate in India provided that the parent country of such law firms have provisions to enable Indian Lawyers to start their practice in the concerned country, would it be practical if one could specialize in something like Comparative and European Private International Law?
4) How are opportunities in International Law in general? SILF recently formed a drafting committee to be sent as representation to the BCI and flag certain " concerns" regarding the move to allow foreign law firms. So if I were to think very pessimistically, the tangible effects of foreign law firms in India would be seen in 8-10 years or so ( which is quite a long time after I pass out)
This seems to be a loaded question for a person just getting into law but a clarification on this would be very grateful. Though I've tried be as factual as possible, please do let me know if I've misinterpreted it wrongly or have thought the whole thing in a very convoluted manner.
International Law and specifically Public/Private International Law were one of the reasons that influenced me to take up Law.
I'm well aware that one must not make the mistake of choosing specializations this early and rather intern at various locations to decide what field suits you the best, but I was just curious to know, is International Law a viable field in India? or is it more oriented towards academia?
Another thing that raised this question was the recent move of the Bar Council of India which recently allowed Foreign Law Firms to operate in India, but only for non litigious matters not concerning Indian laws and regulations.
Chapter 4, Para 8(2)(ii) and (iii) states
(ii) providing legal expertise/advise and appearing as a lawyer for a person, firm, company, corporation, trust, society etc. who/which is having an address or principal office or head office in a foreign country in any international arbitration case which is conducted in India and in such arbitration case “foreign law may or may not be involved;
(iii) providing legal expertise/advise and appearing as a lawyer for a person, firm, company, corporation, trust, society etc. who/which is having an address or principal office or head office in the foreign country of the primary qualification in proceedings before bodies other than Courts, Tribunals, Boards, statutory authorities who are not legally entitled to take evidence on oath, in which knowledge of foreign law of the country of the primary qualification is essential;
The BCI also released a Press Release 4 days ago clarifying that
1) Foreign lawyers and law firms should be allowed to advise their clients only on foreign law and international law.
2)They will only provide advisory work on such laws to their foreign clients.
Now I had quite a few questions regarding this
1)Would this mean Alternate Dispute Resolution would be one of the primary areas where such law firms would primarily deal with?
2) Would an LLM degree in International Law have value in the coming few years?
3) Keeping in the mind the fact that foreign law firms can only operate in India provided that the parent country of such law firms have provisions to enable Indian Lawyers to start their practice in the concerned country, would it be practical if one could specialize in something like Comparative and European Private International Law?
4) How are opportunities in International Law in general? SILF recently formed a drafting committee to be sent as representation to the BCI and flag certain " concerns" regarding the move to allow foreign law firms. So if I were to think very pessimistically, the tangible effects of foreign law firms in India would be seen in 8-10 years or so ( which is quite a long time after I pass out)
This seems to be a loaded question for a person just getting into law but a clarification on this would be very grateful. Though I've tried be as factual as possible, please do let me know if I've misinterpreted it wrongly or have thought the whole thing in a very convoluted manner.