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Unusual cases / Issue 46

Legally India newsletter
Legally India newsletter
It's official at the Supreme Court: India's next Chief Justice will be S H Kapadia and the apex court will welcome its first female judge in four years. About time.

By contrast, niche Mumbai firm LawQuest has retained its all-women tag with its first lateral partner hire to build bandwidth and litigation work.

In Delhi meanwhile, serial legal entrepreneur Rodney Ryder has left Kochhar & Co to launch an IP and telecoms consultancy firm under the unusually creative moniker "Scriboard".

At the same time his old firm Kochhar has expanded into the oil and gas sector with the hire of a Corporate Law Group senior partner Ngangom Junior Luwang.

Coincidentally, both new partners are together looking off the beaten tracks: Ryder bets on future IP growth in Bihar, while Luwang will focus on North East India.

Perhaps in a nod to law minister Moily who wants to make India the legal hub of South Asia, Linklaters has appointed India head Sandeep Katwala to managing partner of its emerging Europe, Middle East and Asia (EEMEA) practice. If nothing else, there will be a lot of travelling on the cards for Katwala. Plus more visas.

Linklaters is of course one of the usual firang suspects in India, next to other circled, magicked or otherwise shoed firms. But despite brand recognition of smaller names being much much lower, the legwork of some are starting to pay off.

Bristol-headquartered firm TLT for example has managed to attract a $110m loan mandate for a syndicate of Indian banks, acting opposite Amarchand. The microfinance sector in Chennai and Hyderabad too is an example of small but nice for firms with a regional focus, as private equity activity there seems to show few signs of slowing down.

Legal Pulse:
Three courts and tribunals have jointly settled a major debate relating to witholding tax and non-residents.


Blogging competition - hugely amazing blogs this week:
This week, Anirban1 has penned what is quite possibly the best-written slice of court-room life yet in his post 'Comfortably numb', peppered with a Tom Waits-ian eye for detail and twisted humour. Plus, he explains how the concept of 'face value' is killing justice in the courts.

Meanwhile, in response to Anirban's post, Nandiireywal has an early-mid-life crisis and wonders whether he should have become a litigator instead of joining leading international firm Colby Hewitt Richard.

LegalPoet in the run-away popular post of the week bravely tries to once-and-for-all quell the great "my-national-law-school-is-better-than-yours" debate.

Hot in heels in popularity, sss has written an innovative account of life in law school as told by a cigarette.

Equally successfully exploring the dark underbelly of law schools, John2010 has written confessions of a chronic cheater - do good guys really finish last? Plus, what do Indian law schools have to hide and why are they so afraid of transparency? What a great theme for a dissertation...

Having said that - do we need more national law schools? NLU Jharkhand is the 14th to mushroom, says Sagnik - join the debate here.

Legaldrift continues her crusade into injust lacunae and exposes how Indian flaws in postmortem thinking can let you get away with murder.

And finally, reliably bizarre and unexpectedly profound: Bihari Babuu writes about foxes, grapes and billable hours. Don't ask, just read.

Two new bloggers this week: nikitaanand talks about how to avoid jail when the enumerator knocks at your door for the Great Indian Census. Allym meanwhile sends us vignettes from court of the salt-and-pepper-turban, and the regulatory woes of the court house chai-wallah.

We are still seeking kind organisations in the writing or legal space that can offer internships as additional prizes to some of our fabulous bloggers. Please contact for more on how you can help support more great legal writing.

Comment of the week: What does Sandeep Katwala have in common with Al Pacino?

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