Khaitan & Co has promoted M&A and private equity principal associate Iqbal Khan to associate partner level in Mumbai.
Khan holds a JD from Columbia Law School and an LLB from the London School of Economics (LSE), having joined Khaitan in 2013 after working several years in New York at Kirkland & Ellis and Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison.
Mumbai partner Rabindra Jhunjhunwala commented in a press release: “Iqbal’s diverse and International experience will further strengthen the Firm’s capabilities in its M&A and Private Equity practice.”
Comments
http://www.legallyindia.com/201410215221/Bar-Bench-Litigation/kerala-bar-council-wants-to-ban-lawyers-from-speaking-to-journalists
My personal perspective, apart from the fact that everybody does it and that the existing rules are archaic, randomly enforced, impossible to enforce, and many more things, PR is not advertising.
If media get sent a press release, in theory they can do whatever they like with it. They can decide to press delete, they can copy paste it and publish it, they can put a new spin on it that makes the firm look bad, or any combination of those things.
Plus, there's no exchange of money.
Ultimately, however, answer has to be pragmatism:
1. Law has also become a business.
2. The profession will formally acknowledge that and evolve, bit by bit, and hopefully the archaic 50-year-old regulations will catch up one of these days with the realities of modern legal practice.
1. We don't know whether he's a PIO or not, but I would strongly assume that he can legitimately practice here, barring any actual evidence to the contrary.
2. As far as I know, both LSE and Columbia are recognised by the BCI, so if he is a PIO, he just has to sit that transfer test and he'd be Indian qualified. Many others do this, so it woudln't be that unusual...
Have confirmed from several horses' mouths: he's registered with the BC of Maha & Goa, which he did when he was still an Indian citizen (although he is a PIO card now).
How many partners (equity or otherwise) in Indian law firms hold foreign first law degrees? Or where the rules different when these folks qualified (between the late seventies and early nineties)?
Kian, please can you dig deeper and settle this.
In a nutshell: only Indian citizens or PIOs or so can be Indian lawyers, if:
1. They have an LLB from a BCI affiliated Indian college, or
2. They have an law degree from one of 20 or so foreign universities that are on a special and pretty random list by the BCI. Most of the ivy league and Oxbridge and some other top UK colleges are on that list. Nowadays, if you have a foreign degree, you also need to pass a special exam, which is 10 times harder than the AIBE I've been told ( http://www.legallyindia.com/Graduates-Bar-Exam/only-1-of-3-passes-latest-bci-qualifier-exam-for-foreign-llb-indians )
Here's also a longer discussion on this:
http://www.legallyindia.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&view=topic&Itemid=622&catid=2&id=244
The average so called National Law graduate trained at a top indian firm is still no match for the average JD trained at a Wall Street firm.