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Just saw your comment - I am dreading the biography... :-)

Tweeting works but direct message over Legally India social network or Legally India chat functionality works equally well... And emails too occasionally... :-)

Kian
Thanks for your queries.

1.) We have not really asked for internships yet. We will wait and wait for a few more blogs, to see what the quality is like and whether the majority of bloggers prefer doing so anonymously.

We have been looking into a few goodies thrown in for bloggers though, but this is at an early stage and may not materialise. Will keep you updated.

2.) Yes, this will pretty much go ahead as we have heard no objections nor has there been a massive rise in non-student bloggers.

We hope to do an update on the competition in due course.

Happy blogging!
Kian

ps: Apologies for any delays - I am currently in London and a few things have fallen behind somewhat.
Thanks LegalPoet for the very generous words. I wish I did party every weekend...

@Other bloggers - please rest assured that personal flattery will have no impact on the judging in any way! :-)

However, LegalPoet, I promise to buy you a pint /cup of chai when you next visit Mumbai. Same offer open to any other bloggers too, just send me a short email.
Dear All,

Thanks for your comments.

First off, I agree, this was not huge news although I did not expect such a backlash against something which does shed light on a firm's expansion strategy.

Second, I just want to repeat that we do NOT EVER take any money from law firms or others for writing editorial articles about them.

None of the articles featured on Legally India should be advertorial but are all independently selected because we think they are somewhat interesting.

Please read our mission statement for more details on our editorial policy:

http://www.legallyindia.com/legally-india-all-news-about-the-indian-legal-market

Best regards,
Kian
We had considered Indian firms but thought it would increase the prizepool if just foreign firms were invited to bid.

We also wanted to avoid the potential controversy of Indian firms being accused of 'advertising', contrary to the Bar Council rules - although that is probably a moot point.

If any Indian firms are interested in sponsoring next year's MPL, by all means, please do get in touch.

Best regards,
Kian
Many thanks. We have been looking into the moot quite closely and understand that only a small number of Indian teams participate, as opposed to the older international competitions with national selection rounds, etc.

However, we understand that ICC Hague is gaining in popularity and we have it at the top of the list for inclusion in next year's MPL.

In this case we made a tight call between ICC Paris and ICC Hague and after discussions with mooters came to the conclusion that ICC Paris was just slightly ahead of Hague in terms of attendance and prestige.

Next year's MPL selection process will be much more in-depth and collaborative. We will keep you posted.

Best regards,
Kian
@1 - Very right you are. Apologies for the mix-up - it has now been corrected.

Best regards,
Kian
Thanks for your comment.

As it was a blind auction we can not disclose the other bidders unfortunately. We approached most of the major UK law firms with India practices and all bid under identical rules.

There was significant interest and the bids were all very generous.

Best regards
Kian
Thanks for your feedback. I understand that CLAThacker and Shamnad Basheer's initiative were conceived completely independently of each other and just happened to coincide in terms of timing. They also take a different approach to the problem, although there is considerable overlap.

We had also ommitted to include a comment from Basheer in the original article, which we have now added above.

Basheer commented: "The platform really leverages the power of web 2.0 to help a diverse section of students to take a good shot at CLAT. And the fact that it is run by someone who, despite having studied in a non English medium school managed to top NUJS entrance, lends it a lot of credibility. And offers hope to a number of students."

I accept that this should have been included in the original copy of the article and regret any confusion caused.

Best regards,
Kian
CORRECTION: There have been two corrections that have changed some of the most recent MPL rankings.

Please see the corrections made in the above for details.

By way of explanation, although not by way of excuse, the BR Sawhney memorial results were hard to confirm as we only reported the moot a month after the event in November 2009 when the MPL first started. Then and subsequently it had proved hard getting hold of the convenors.

For Surana Tech, there were so many best orators in different categories that Vinay confirmed today with almost a half-dozen people involved in the organisation and participation of the moot, many of whom were still not sure on who had won which orator prize. We now have definitive confirmation on this point.

Thanks to eagle-eyed readers for pointing out the errors, which we sincerely regret.

Best regards,
Kian
The name is actually M. Dhruva, surprisingly. I am not sure where the M comes from either but that is what it says in their emails.

Best,
Kian
Hi,

I think Tatva in Delhi you can reach on shishir.sharma [at] tatvalegal[dot]com

Best regards,
Kian
In response to #60, please see the following from the Moot Court convenor of ULC Anirudh Garga: "All score cards are to be put in our website - www.ulcxivmoot.in - soon to ensure transparency. I like to say that this moot is one of the most transparent moots all over India, we do not have any personal choices and all judges were eminent persons in the field of law."
Thanks #2, I hear your concern.

I have spoken to a few NUJS-ites and it appears there is some confusion, even internally about this.

As far as I understand there have definitely been issues with college funding and internal MCC-related disagreements but no one quite knows what exactly to point the finger at, it seems.

We still don't have all of the details on it but we are looking into it, out of curiosity. Would be interested to hear the full story and would welcome any NUJS-ites to get in touch with us.

Best regards,
Kian
Read this blog now.

For one, it is rather good, and secondly, due to a mysterious technical failure it was inaccessible apart from to registered users.

Really sorry for the inconvenience, we have now found the culprit bug.

Best regards,
Kian
#58, thanks for your comment but I would just like to say unequivocally that this is not true. We like ILS and all other law schools equally! :-)

But because we try to get final confirmation of results from convenors in each case (which includes categories such as best researcher, memorial or orator, which often no one seems to remember with 100% accuracy), it takes some time. Convenors are often hard to get hold of for some of the moots.

Plus, it was Holi yesterday!

However, the story on the ILS wins should be up later today. Thanks for your patience.

Best regards,
Kian
@1, Many thanks, that is indeed interesting. We have added a short line to the story with a link to the Eco Times.

I wonder how long it will take to create it...

Kian
Thanks @4. The originally reported statement is correct, although in print it is perhaps possible to misread.

We have clarified the point with Pallavi Shroff and she has explained that notification should be triggered on two conditions taken together: (i) it should be a binding document, AND (ii) it should clearly express intent to acquire the shares, voting rights, assets or control of an enterprise.
Thanks again. In response to the above, the exclusion of certain moots is a function of covering only X number of top moots.

This selection is based on talking to Moot Court Committees about which moots they considered to be the most prestigious and popular.

Somewhere they and we had to draw the line. In this case this number was 36 (35 originally) and we could not have realistically covered 70 moots in this first season.

Importantly several other moots could have been suggested and were accepted during the long and open consultation periods but please understand that it will be almost impossible for us to include any moot that already has a winner.

There is practically no way to include moots that have already taken place without being prejudicial to one school over another.

Following the principles of natural justice, the only way the MPL can be fair to everyone involved is if it does not act retroactively at such a late stage in the competition and the points are allocated according to pre-agreed criteria.

Furthermore, anonymous comments are well and good in polling opinion but very hard to use in making an objective decision.

If you want to make a serious case for inclusion of an upcoming competition please contact me directly - +91 900 405 6651 so we can evaluate your petition objectively.

Finally, there are still enough points and competitions coming up that should still give most of the top colleges a fair shot at winning this season.

Best regards,
Kian
Thanks for all your comments and apologies about the delay in my response.

Vinay's explains things well above at #21 and #11.

At the end of the day, we had to draw the line somewhere, although a valid case can always be made for inclusion of 'just one more' moot.

We had a long period where we have invited submissions for further moots for inclusion and have continually cross checked with moot court convenors and committees about their views.

Unless a highly compelling argument was made for inclusion, in that there has been a gross oversight or miscategorisation, we are not able to add moots incrementally to the MPL ad infinitum, as we hope you understand.

For obvious reasons, at this stage we can also not add a new moot AFTER a moot has been held and the winner has been declared, as any such decision would inevitably favour one college over another.

I agree, the MPL criteria are not perfect and there are bound to be borderline cases that just make it or don't, one way or another (such as ULC Bangalore's moot, this season).

There are also very valid arguments for inclusion of a tier 5. A reason that we have not, has been a function of bandwidth as another commenter has mentioned previously, but we do hope to cover even more moots in the next season.

We also plan to have a longer and open consultation period with the top moot court commitees before next season to establish the final list of moots in light of everyone's experience this year.

If you do have any suggestions, please post below or contact us directly and we can have a chat and discuss individual cases, in light of the above.

Best regards,
Kian

ps: @3 - we are still following up on BR Sawhney best memo results, please bear with us. Sometimes it does take a long time to get through to the authoritative person, in light of their work commitments etc.
Thanks for your comments - we will investigate and revert in due course.

Best regards,
Kian
Well, for one, the majority of these stories you mention were not press releases and were the result of good old fashioned reporting.

It boils down to that something purporting to be news, should pass through some editorial filter. And even if we use a press release as the basis of an article, we will never publish it wholesale and unedited and will try to represent things as impartially and factually as possible.

Of the press releases that we receive, we reject and never publish stories on a significant proportion because they are either fluffy and have no news value and are overtly advertorial of a firm or a product.

While in this case, we would have probably carried the deal story anyway in our deals feed (which is why we have not deleted this post), that editorial filter should still exist and should not be circumvented through the blogs.

I am sure no one wants a blogging section that is simply swamped with press releases from firms announcing their latest achievements.

Thanks for input.

Best regards,
Kian
True. We have focused on Sondhi a lot because our focus is mainly on law firms for now, many of our readers are law firmites, and Sondhi is an unusual member of the BC in that he comes from a law firm.

Plus, he has challenged the election, which is surely worth mentioning... :-)
Hi All,

Thanks for your messages. It does appear that Nalsar has won the NUJS moot but we are still trying to get confirmation from the convenor, which is not forthcoming.

We will update properly once we have got the final confirmation.

Best regards,
Kian
@1 We have contacted Kochhar & Co to double check the figures.

Vivek Ahuja said: "As of now we are exactly 119 lawyers only." He said that this figure included lawyers based in Singapore and other foreign offices.

The earlier figure of 135 that we reported may have included some paralegals, according to Ahuja. We have made a correction in the copy to reflect this.

Please contact us directly if you have any suggestions and we will be happy to discuss.

Best regards,
Kian
Hi,

For clarification, we do not allow what is essentially advertorial or firm press releases posted as blogs.

We are happy to publish deals in our deals feed column or consider press releases for publication, but if these are published as blogs it will blur the boundary between editorial and PR.

This is also set out in our Terms and Conditions clause 4.
http://www.legallyindia.com/termsnconditions

We will allow this post up for now but future PR posted up by a law firm as a blog we will have to remove.

However, there is nothing wrong with a law firm or lawyer posting up content that is independently relevant, e.g. academically or otherwise, with a byline of the lawyer and law firm.

Best regards,
Kian
@3 - Maybe not entirely fair - we had actually asked the partner to write it up and I posted it as a comment as the story was already published by the time we got it.

@4 - Great find, I wholeheartedly second your comment.

READ
http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/careers/opia/landing-your-job/sample-cover-letters.html

Best,
Kian
CORRECTION: Rajani Associates partner Purvi Kapadia is in fact a partner, rather than an associate as originally reported. We regret the error and have corrected this.
Haha, enjoy your tea, nice analysis of the circle of legal life.

By the way, on your point 5 - we have not read the book either and have no idea whether it's good or not although people who have read it say it is.
Absolutely, very sorry. I promise it really is on the top of my mind of things to finish almost every other day but it has been hard to find a spare minute and has constantly ended up taking a back seat.

The data is also pretty complex and I have had a hard time figuring out the best way to present all of it in a way that makes sense.

Again, apologies - it definitely has nothing to do with us not wanting to publish the information.

Best regards,
Kian
#10 Thank you very much for your support, that is very kind. We will definitely hope to keep the site as interactive as possible and to continue engaging directly, even as things scale up.

Apologies, however, if I have been slow in replying to anyone's emails - we do read everything you send us but sometimes there just don't seem to be enough hours in the day. We hope to revert on all queries in any case.

Best regards,
Kian
Dear commenters,

First of all, apologies for the delay in responding, I have been out in meetings and was unable to deal with the queries properly at the time they were made.

In line with our terms and conditions we have to have a robust takedown policy of comments that people raise objections about, as Legally India is not responsible for reader comments. But as this is an anonymous forum it is also only fair that a subject of discussions has the chance of a fair reply or explanation if they feel they are being hard done by.

If a firm alleges that comments are defamatory, offensive or inappropriate we will take action in line with our T&Cs until while we investigate the basis of the claims and/or seek legal advice.

In this case we have temporarily unpublished the comments while we are liaising with the firm to hear their objections. We hope to continue being transparent about this process, as much as is reasonably possible.

We hope to resolve this as soon as possible and come to a mutually satisfactory result.

This is not a matter of being in collusion with anyone but merely one of responsible publishing and being fair to both sides of a debate.

A better way of getting your point of view across sometimes may also be to contact me directly under the strictest confidence to put across your concerns.

Best regards,
Kian
We have temporarily unpublished three of the above comments at the request of FoxMandal while we investigate the matter further.

We will update shortly.

Best regards,
Kian
Thanks @6. It is just a rough calculation we did, based on Clifford Chance's London billable hours target of 1,700 hours per associate (that would be 100% utilisation).

On that basis, the work done by the LPO was similar to what 7 associates working at 100% utilisation would be doing.

In practice it probably doesn't work out as neatly, as the time spent or billed by London/LPO associates could be not directly tranposable, and some of the work is bound to be paralegal work.

But thought it was a good way of putting the figure into context.

Hope that answers your query.

Best regards,
Kian
Thanks #8, sorry I misunderstood.

I agree, it is not a major breaking news story but more of a little insight into what the CC captive LPO was up to, which I thought was interesting.

It is quite a unique model and approach that CC has taken and many people are interested in how it will progress - particularly UK/US lawyers who feel that outsourcing is a major threat to their careers and livelihoods.

Best regards and glad you are enjoying the site,
Kian
Thanks @1, glad you are enjoying it - it is certainly very interesting seeing and measuring the different colleges' performance.

Apologies about the KLA and Surana actually - slight mix-up there, as result is still not fully confirmed. Nalsar definitely got points in both competitions, NLS performance we are still finally confirming. One of the other top colleges will also be rising the ranks - we hope to have final figures by tomorrow.

Sorry for the delay, but we would rather print information that is as accurate as possible.

Kian
We have reinstated the majority of two comments after long discussions with the firm.

One comment has been removed in its entirity as some of the facts it alleges are potentially contentious and not fully and finally settled yet. We will investigate further.

We hope this is a fair compromise in this case for now.

#18, I agree that comment #5 should not have stood on its own without a response. We regret any offence caused.

Best regards,
Kian
Hi,

I believe he is still on his JSA email ID for this week but I do not have his updated details yet.

Best regards,
Kian
@1, 2: No judgment on this post specifically, but in general terms, quality of writing will be a criteria in the competition, which includes some of the above.

Some general unsolicited advice for everybody, try to keep paragraphs short with regular breaks - it is much more easy on the eye when read on a screen.
Last night I spoke to last year's NLS Bangalore recruitment committee member Kota Chandan.

He said that last year the in-house corporate and overseas law firm recruitment were much lower than this year.

Although the committee still achieved 100% placement out of 45 students who took part, Chandan said that a few people consciously took up litigation or were willing to settle for lower salaries at tier 2 firms, whereas they might otherwise have gone for a higher paying law firm job.

Some law firms did recruit less last year - for example, Amarchand only took on four students from campus, of which one was a pre-placement offer.
No such allusion was meant to be drawn, sorry you perceived it this way. Have added a note to the text to clarify this.

However, ultimately it just meant to point out that law student suicides appear alarmingly common place.

Have there ever been any organised programmes to look into the causes of student suicides?

Are on campus counsellors or student support groups available at any colleges?

Or do you think it's a wider problem that is not possible to deal with at that level?
@5 Thanks, good spot. Apparently this is because some candidates received more than one offer and not all the figures mentioned resulted in acceptances.

We should have mentioned this in the original article.
Hi, thanks for your comment. We do not currently have a league table for rights issues unfortunately.

We usually consider RHPs if the DHRP filings were very old and now revived and that it was not covered in a previous league table in the same or another financial year. There is no proper hard and fast rule though and it generally depends on the circumstances.

Hope that makes sense. Thanks, Kian
@8, Many thanks for clearing this up. We had looked into the situation in great detail and only few people seemed to be able to explain the difference between the three.

We have now amended the copy and will refer to the correct Law Centre of Delhi University in future.
Thanks, I look forward to hearing from you!

As far as I know, othing happened to the comments but maybe much of what can be said has been said on the subject? Or maybe not. Who knows...
@1: FYI, I understand from sources that a number of other senior equity partners also owned minority stakes in the office property.
@1 - you are absolutely correct. I sincerely apologise for the unintentional error, which we have now corrected. The six ommitted IPOs were the IPOs of Jindal Power, Eros International, Neptune Developers, United Bank of India, Persistent Systems and Aster Silicate.

The rankings at the top of the table did not materially change after the inclusion of the above transactions.

Again, I would like to apologise for the error.
@19 Drew P,

In all honesty, not an ounce or sarcasm was intended, although I now realise 'flamboyant' may have been a bit too hyperbolic.

In any case, 'flamboyant' was no intended reference whatsoever to remuneration but to their personalities and senses of humour, which I think the TOI write-up managed to bring out well.

Advocates are by their very nature engaging public speakers and the few I have had the pleasure to hear myself have been captivating and entertaining.
Thanks Just Curious, fair comment.

I just thought it was interesting/amusing that a general interest paper like Times of India used the wider term 'lawyers' and then listed only advocates.

Very good list though, really enjoyed reading it, as well as reading people's views.
By the way, in the same supplement, TOI also picks its five fave deals with lawyers on them: Delhi Shroffs, Zia, TTA's Feroz Dubash, Luthra and Trilegal's Anand Prasad http://is.gd/63Ij3