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@32 - In respect of reporting: the order was not yet available at the time we reported the story and therefore had relied on accounts of the hearing, which appear to have broadly reflected the events.
I don't see how the story would have 'misled' anyone, please do explain.
In respect of getting organised, if you wish you can use the existing features on the site by creating a thread on the forum, a group in the social network or by posting up a blog. We can not ourselves get involved with activism, however, so we remain impartial and do not mislead anyone in the news reporting.
"What was the need for the superfluous 'like-minded'. If three people are coming together to set up a firm, obviously they must be having some minimum common agenda. Anyway, good luck to this firm."
Fair enough, I thought, you had a point. In response to your comment we then changed the headline to "partner friends" rather than "like-minded partners". However, your comment would not have made sense to other readers without an explanation of the change so it was temporarily unpublished until I had the chance to reply properly, which unfortunately I did not have this morning.
I thought the headline change would have appeased your disgust in the meantime and shown that we took notice of your comment but I fail to see how not publishing the feedback/correction comment could in any way condemn us to hell of all places for censorship?
Thanks for your comments and apologies for the late reply, I've been travelling.
As I said I take this criticism on board but in this case I believe it to be a bit of a storm in a teacup. The headline does not state "Hindus attack Muslims" - all it says is that Hindus approach SC for a fairly procedural and innocuous order, which anyone else could have also made.
I agree that lumping a people together just by religion is not right, but this case is very much a religious dispute and the parties happen to be most easily identifiable by their religion rather than their lengthy monikers. Therefore any reference to Hindus or Muslims will to any reasonable reader identify a party to the dispute, rather than referring to all members of the religion.
Anyway, despite the most vitriolic comments coming from a (regularly vitriolic and trolling) minority, we have changed the headline to "Hindu party approaches SC". I trust that this is more acceptable, bearing in mind that no headline can tell the full story while still being readable, and that we can move on to other discussions.
Thanks for your comment, it is noted. However, headlines by their very nature always have to condense the facts so they don't become too long. Usually the standfirst paragraph should elaborate on the headline.
Indeed, we agree that would be great but logistically it would be a nightmare collecting this information accurately for 50-odd moots right now. We can perhaps contact the moot court committees of each of the top-ranked colleges in a month or two and ask them which moots they have participated in so far and which they intend to go to?
Talwar Thakore Associates is included in the value tables by the way in fourth position, having advised on two deals totalling $10.7bn in the first half year (although no deals were added to the tally in the last quarter).
Many thanks for pointing out and we regret the delay in making the correction, which has now been made to the main text. It was an unintentional error that was in part caused by the judgments only having been uploaded in stages at the time.
Thanks for your comment. However, as editor it was my job to take a judgment call weighing the benefits of open discussion vs the risk of rioting, and I think we decided correctly (unless you can find any LI readers who have instigated a riot).
The problem is, I believe that there is no pro-liberalisation 'lobby' that has any power or impact, apart from foreign law firms themselves to a limited extent.
Thanks for your feedback and glad our coverage was useful. I thought about whether comments should be left open and decided that the Legally India audience is so niche, educated and unlikely to go or provoke rioting that we could allow some free discourse to take place (that is despite the vitriol that occasionally passes for debate here).
Honestly, no fish - I understand that Mr Surendranath received the reply two days ago or so, actually.
According to my understanding there are also several other similar RTI's before the BCI. If you are one of the ones who filed one and have not yet received a reply (or an unsatisfactory one), please get in touch with me and we can follow it up.
Wow, those are great links and information, thank you! I tried in vain looking on the SC website but I guess it must have been buried somewhere out of view.
Those with bandwidth caps, bewarned by the way, the first link is a mammoth 60MB PDF!
Apologies for the delay but I bid your patience please - doing this properly and giving due attention to each post takes its time. We are still waiting for return of one verdict. Hopefully as soon as possible we'll be able to update.
Thanks for your comment - you are correct, I should have added the year of the blog post in the article, been done now.
However, part of the reason I cited a 2006 article was because I could honestly not find any other useful previous references on the internet. The only other prominent article was one in The Hindu from 2002.
The figures were provided by Khaitan and seem realistic. I believe that the firm operates a total of four different partnerships right now, one for each of its offices, although each partnership is connected through a number of joing partners in common.
Not quite actually - derecognition is still subject to no satisfactory reply having been received to the show cause notice by the college. The reply was submitted but has not yet been considered and was deferred at a later meeting due to an apparent shortage of time. In the minutes it reads:
"After consideration Committee found that Chanakya National Law University, Patna is not having minimum standards required under the rules. It is made clear that shortcomings pointed out by the inspection team has to be rectified within two months. By and before that date, inspection team will again examine whether the shortcomings have been removed or not. In case shortcomings are not removed, University authorities are directed that they should not admit any student during the session 2010-2011. The university must file the compliance report within two months from the date of receipt of the communication. If University fails to do so serious steps is likely to be taken which they have to bear." (see page 5 of the minutes of 30 April)
As an aside - we have started moderating comments a little less now that they are hidden. This has sort of seemed to cause the 'slug fest' between law schools, or whatever you like to call it to become more heated (and perhaps more nonsensical and/or entertaining?).
Please have your say on the forum if this is good, bad and if we should be slightly stricter in moderating comments that are obviously 'trolling' for a reaction?
Just to clarify: Someone else appears to have used DisplacedBong's LI account and posted some trolling messages. We have now anonymised those comments and please don't send DisplacedBong hatemail, he/she probably likes NUJS students very much.
Hello, please see this forum thread which explains the change to initially hidden comments a little. Many other popular websites use it so we're experimenting with it for a while to see if it works.
Dear Mr Seth, Many thanks for your comment but I think you are misreading the headline slightly. Just because a family connection is mentioned in the headline does not mean we are degrading the issue. At least, nothing of the sort was intended or even envisaged when writing it. I hope the article as a whole also makes that clear.
Thanks for your comment #15/1. I do still find the notion that we are covertly sponsored by SILF or anyone else quite amusing.
Be that as it may, we will generally publish all your comments apart from those that have the whiff of a disgruntled ex-employee or competitor about them. Your comment seemed very personal and the facts asserted by it are hard, if not impossible, for us to confirm.
I accept that maybe what you write could be true, but if we let loose assertions like this go up then the comments can quickly turn into little more than competitors shouting against each other or people carrying out personal vendettas.
I do not think you would find any website based in India (or outside for that matter, catering to Indian lawyers) which is as permissive in its comment policy as Legally India.
If you have more to tell, why don't you get in touch with me directly and confidentially and we can discuss some of your concerns about this firm directly to help us form a balanced view.
No, those aren't our facts so I can't vouch for them. As pointed out in the article, that information is "according to information supplied for a Businessworld magazine survey by the firm".
Thanks for your feedback. However I am surprised in this case - I thought the most interesting part of this story was Khaitan's conversion to a mixed salaried/equity partnership model, as exists at many other firms.
Looking at the way different law firms choose to structure their equity is important, and will no doubt increasingly become so moving forward.
In terms of partnership salaries, well yes, we would all like to know. Unfortunately any information I currently have is not enough to be publishable as confirmed fact.
Basically almost every Indian and foreign firm was involved in this transaction, unsurprisingly.
Quoting: "On the original acquisition in 2007 Linklaters, Thalwar Thakore & Associates and Trilegal represented Vodafone, with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Khaitan & Co and Paul Weiss for the Hutchison companies, and AZB & Partners and Herbert Smith acting for Essar Group, which was a minority shareholder in the target. Amarchand Mangaldas advised Hutchison specifically on tax issues in relation to the transaction."
Hello #3 - just thought I'd let you know that if you prefer reading about international firms, we have a news feed to The Lawyer at the very bottom left of every page that always shows you the latest headlines from the UK, US and international legal market.
It explained the asterisks - have clarified slightly. They are all new posts that have not yet been featured in the competition and people may therefore not have read.
You are correct, the wording was not clear. The petition was only about whether the tax authorities had the jurisdiction to charge Vodafone tax in India.
We never disclose or speculate about the identity anonymous sources but suffice it to say that Rainmaker is a separate entity from the BCI and it would not be accurate to describe a person connected to Rainmaker as a "BCI insider".
Such a source would commonly be described as someone familiar with the issue.
Really? I'm surprised. We post up all comments critical of Legally India, unless it is the same person repeating a similar comment over and over again or the comment is seriously obscene and/or offensive. In fact we are far less strict about comments about LI than comments about anyone else. Do feel free to repost your criticism if it was genuine.
I don't see how the story would have 'misled' anyone, please do explain.
In respect of getting organised, if you wish you can use the existing features on the site by creating a thread on the forum, a group in the social network or by posting up a blog. We can not ourselves get involved with activism, however, so we remain impartial and do not mislead anyone in the news reporting.
Best regards
Kian
Best regards, Kian
"What was the need for the superfluous 'like-minded'. If three people are coming together to set up a firm, obviously they must be having some minimum common agenda. Anyway, good luck to this firm."
Fair enough, I thought, you had a point. In response to your comment we then changed the headline to "partner friends" rather than "like-minded partners". However, your comment would not have made sense to other readers without an explanation of the change so it was temporarily unpublished until I had the chance to reply properly, which unfortunately I did not have this morning.
I thought the headline change would have appeased your disgust in the meantime and shown that we took notice of your comment but I fail to see how not publishing the feedback/correction comment could in any way condemn us to hell of all places for censorship?
Best wishes,
Kian
Here is a link to the original press release. However, we also got customised India-only data from Dealogic which we published in the story.
http://www.legallyindia.com/images/stories/docs/DealogicProjects-Q3-2010.pdf
In response to #3 - no Legally India does not undertake independent research and we simply re-report the Dealogic projects tables.
As I said I take this criticism on board but in this case I believe it to be a bit of a storm in a teacup. The headline does not state "Hindus attack Muslims" - all it says is that Hindus approach SC for a fairly procedural and innocuous order, which anyone else could have also made.
I agree that lumping a people together just by religion is not right, but this case is very much a religious dispute and the parties happen to be most easily identifiable by their religion rather than their lengthy monikers. Therefore any reference to Hindus or Muslims will to any reasonable reader identify a party to the dispute, rather than referring to all members of the religion.
Anyway, despite the most vitriolic comments coming from a (regularly vitriolic and trolling) minority, we have changed the headline to "Hindu party approaches SC". I trust that this is more acceptable, bearing in mind that no headline can tell the full story while still being readable, and that we can move on to other discussions.
Best regards,
Kian
Will bear your feedback in mind in future.
However, it would be an interesting background statistic so we will try to collect some of this data just for information purposes.
Any thoughts?
http://www.legallyindia.com/201007161107/Corporate-/-MA/azb-top-of-first-half-2010-maa-league-as-foreign-firms-pick-up-big-value-deals
Best regards,
Kian
http://www.legallyindia.com/1366-bombay-lawyer-on-a-starvation-dieta-1930s-career-advice-has-anything-changed
That letter is quite an amazing find and good read, I thought...
Best regards,
Kian
http://www.legallyindia.com/201009051269/Analysis/foreign-law-firms-into-india-voices-in-favour-against-and-why-nothing-changes
The problem is, I believe that there is no pro-liberalisation 'lobby' that has any power or impact, apart from foreign law firms themselves to a limited extent.
Ps: For the avoidance of doubt, we are not really watching associates, only partners!
Warm regards,
Kian
If it is considered offensive we can change it as it was not meant to be.
According to my understanding there are also several other similar RTI's before the BCI. If you are one of the ones who filed one and have not yet received a reply (or an unsatisfactory one), please get in touch with me and we can follow it up.
Best regards
Kian
Also, this story sounds too good not to be true...?
Pro bono is actually damn fun and useful, I am surprised that legal clinics like these do not continue in India after law school...
Those with bandwidth caps, bewarned by the way, the first link is a mammoth 60MB PDF!
Best,
Kian
However, part of the reason I cited a 2006 article was because I could honestly not find any other useful previous references on the internet. The only other prominent article was one in The Hindu from 2002.
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/op/2002/08/06/stories/2002080600060200.htm
Wikipedia also has a nice write-up although there are no references and not many details either. Will add a link to the Legally India story too.
http://bit.ly/aODps7
Best regards
Kian
This is a similar model to other firms.
"After consideration Committee found that Chanakya National Law University, Patna is not having minimum standards required under the rules. It is made clear that shortcomings pointed out by the inspection team has to be rectified within two months. By and before that date, inspection team will again examine whether the shortcomings have been removed or not. In case shortcomings are not removed, University authorities are directed that they should not admit any student during the session 2010-2011. The university must file the compliance report within two months from the date of receipt of the communication. If University fails to do so serious steps is likely to be taken which they have to bear." (see page 5 of the minutes of 30 April)
Please have your say on the forum if this is good, bad and if we should be slightly stricter in moderating comments that are obviously 'trolling' for a reaction?
http://www.legallyindia.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=3&id=2029&Itemid=158
http://www.legallyindia.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=3&id=2029&Itemid=158
Best regards,
Kian
Best regards,
Kian
Be that as it may, we will generally publish all your comments apart from those that have the whiff of a disgruntled ex-employee or competitor about them. Your comment seemed very personal and the facts asserted by it are hard, if not impossible, for us to confirm.
I accept that maybe what you write could be true, but if we let loose assertions like this go up then the comments can quickly turn into little more than competitors shouting against each other or people carrying out personal vendettas.
I do not think you would find any website based in India (or outside for that matter, catering to Indian lawyers) which is as permissive in its comment policy as Legally India.
If you have more to tell, why don't you get in touch with me directly and confidentially and we can discuss some of your concerns about this firm directly to help us form a balanced view.
Best regards,
Kian
http://www.legallyindia.com/201009171312/Law-schools/bci-says-5000-students-wont-be-harmed-in-law-school-closures-list-still-not-announced
Looking at the way different law firms choose to structure their equity is important, and will no doubt increasingly become so moving forward.
In terms of partnership salaries, well yes, we would all like to know. Unfortunately any information I currently have is not enough to be publishable as confirmed fact.
Best regards,
Kian
But let's not again start a debate of "my law school is better than yours".
Anyone who has any thoughts, please do share.
http://www.legallyindia.com/201009091284/Tax/back-to-drawing-board-vodafone-hutch-tax-judgment-has-major-impact
Basically almost every Indian and foreign firm was involved in this transaction, unsurprisingly.
Quoting: "On the original acquisition in 2007 Linklaters, Thalwar Thakore & Associates and Trilegal represented Vodafone, with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Khaitan & Co and Paul Weiss for the Hutchison companies, and AZB & Partners and Herbert Smith acting for Essar Group, which was a minority shareholder in the target. Amarchand Mangaldas advised Hutchison specifically on tax issues in relation to the transaction."
The details are from this article:
http://www.asialaw.com/Article/1971024/Search/Results/Behind-the-Deal-Vodafone-Takes-Over-Hutchison-Whampoas-India.html?Keywords=Australia&PageMove=26
and Amarchand's Legal500 entry.
Best regards,
Kian
It explained the asterisks - have clarified slightly. They are all new posts that have not yet been featured in the competition and people may therefore not have read.
We will of course carry an update as soon as that happens.
Best regards,
Kian
Such a source would commonly be described as someone familiar with the issue.