Satyam settled a New York class action law suit against its shareholders for $125m. But was it good news for India?

Legally India’s exclusive analysis of US court documents reveals the Indian leg of the class action where sworn expert witness statements by top academics Vikramaditya Khanna and Sandeep Parekh clashed with an ex-Chief Justice Ahmadi and J Sagar Associates (JSA) about whether Satyam’s aggrieved shareholders would have had any options in India at all.

The fact that such a debate can be had at all is not good news.

Good inspiration for young lawyers was another law firm start-up by young advocate Krishnayan Sen. Apart from opening in three cities at once he is also the second NUJS Kolkata 2006 graduate to have founded his own law firm following Rohit Das and PXV as it is now called. There must have been something special in the canteen food that batch.

For foreign law firms things are not exactly looking up although there’s a glimmer of hope, according to an analyst report by RSG Consulting. While most of India’s fastest-growing companies were not exactly familiar with foreign law firms and largely depended on Indian referrals, some said that consistent marketing and face time did yield results for the firang in the longer term. All those nights at the Tajs and Oberois can’t all be wasted then.

In legal regulatory territory the BCI law school bribery case accused are not faring well and still languishing in jail without bail. Women lawyers on the other hand have a new body to represent their interests with the Society of Women Lawyers (SOWL) has launched to attempt to bring a bit of much-needed gender-levelling to the profession.

Meanwhile, the bar exam and hall passes are supposedly on the way now, although for many of graduates who have recently contacted Legally India dissatisfaction persists about the unresolved court cases and legal status of the exam. In the Bombay High Court one of the cases is still ongoing and despite complaints about lack of study materials, that the courts will deflect the exam now seems unlikely.

The Mooting Premier League reached a new peak this week.

Magic circle firm Allen & Overy has kindly endowed the MPL with a generous prize fund for the winning mooting colleges, if the competition was not quite fierce enough yet.

And then we had Indian mooting’s first Super Sunday, which closed a weekend of a grand total of six moots including the prestigious DM Harish at GLC. Legally India’s Team MPL live blogged the entire moot and the results of three others direct from grand moot court chambers at Mumbai University. See below for more mooting stories, an in-depth interview on NUJS’ mooting religion with star-mooter Deepak Raju and the latest standings (Ps: NUJS is not in first place anymore).

And finally, for a lighter, satirical take on law school mooting, read award-winning blogger folly_nariman's take on MPL Live.

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