foreign law firms
Baker & McKenzie International’s Singaporean member firm Baker & McKenzie.Wong & Leow has hired Prashanth Venkatesh as a local principal on 1 July.
Commerce ministry Rajeev Kher held a press conference yesterday, saying that the government had begun talks about opening up the transactional legal services sector and India-based international arbitration, having drawn in law firm lobby group Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) and the regulator Bar Council of India (BCI).
Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra has sent an unsolicited email to Legally India’s editor Kian Ganz earlier today, after having sent a legal notice claiming defamation just over one week ago.
Linklaters, Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy and Baker & McKenzie are the highest profile foreign law firms operating in India, according to the latest analysis of foreign law firms’ India businesses.
White & Case has hired Linklaters managing associate Pradyumna Mysoor as a local partner in its Hong Kong office.
Davis Polk & Wardwell registered foreign lawyer Amit Kataria has joined Morrison Foerster (MoFo) as an of counsel in Hong Kong.
He specialises in cross border M&As and disputes and enforcement in India, according to MoFo’s press release, which added that he will help the firm grow its India practice.
The Delhi University 2004 LLB alumnus who obtained his LLM from Columbia Law School in the US in 2007, began his career as an associate in 2007 with Debevoise & Plimpton from where he joined Davis Polk in 2011.
MoFo managing partner Eric Piesner said in the release: “MoFo has seen an increase in demand for assistance from Asian and international clients seeking to invest in India as changes in government and various macroeconomic factors make India a more attractive investment target.”
The firm has an active corporate presence in South Asia with many clients including long time client SoftBank, added the release.
"Why should we need to go outside the country for global arbitration? We shouldn’t think that if foreign lawyers come here, they will take away our jobs,” said prime minister Narendra Modi, for the first time publicly weighing in on the liberalisation debate, adding that fears that foreign lawyers would dominate the local profession were unfounded.
Senior advocate Harish Salve is assisting the 50-lawyer strong society of Indian lawyers fighting the Bar Council of India (BCI) in the Supreme Court, for liberalisation in Indian legal services.
The Bar Council of India’s (BCI) appeal opposing entry of foreign law firms into India today inched forward in the Supreme Court, as the respondents finished filing their written submissions 32 months after the first hearing in the case.
Commerce secretary Rajeev Kher told Mint that a committee of secretaries may “meet as early as this month to clear the proposal on legal services, which will be subsequently placed before the cabinet for a final decision”.
The global chartered accountancy (CA) firms dwarf even global law firms in revenue and have increasingly been getting into legal services, with PwC’s legal arm now having a headcount of lawyers equivalent to the world’s tenth-largest firm already generating $500m per year from law, reports the Economist:
Those most at risk from the attack of the bean-counters are the profusion of mid-tier legal firms in liberalised markets. Since their profit margins are already low, they cannot afford even a modest loss of market share. Unfortunately for them, much of their business is high-volume, repetitive tasks—just the sort of work that the Big Four excel at standardising and automating.
In India, CA firms have been making inroads into legal too, with Ernst & Young (E&Y) having arguably been the most visible via its close alliance with aggressively growing start-up PDS Legal. Even domestic CA firms such as Mohinder Puri & Co have made forays into legal best friendships, having hired former Amarchand Mangaldas tax head Aseem Chawla in 2012.
The Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) and the Bar Council of India (BCI) have also been in talks about the growing threat of CA firms, other than just foreign law firms, with the Madras high court having indicated that CA firms might be in violation of the law by practising it.
Law minister https://www.legallyindia.com/Law-firms/legal-market-liberalisation-investigation-into-lobbying-and-policy told The Hindu: “Yes, Japan has written to us. We are taking the issue of opening up our legal sector on a positive note, but on the condition that it will increase the face-value of our lawyers globally and there will be a mutual exchange of lawyers, law firms.”
BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra told The Hindu: “The Union Law Ministry has handed us Japan’s letter which says that they are ready and eager to invite and allow Indian lawyers and Indian law firms to practice Indian laws in Japan. The BCI is studying the proposal.”
“We will be framing this rule of reciprocity after carefully examining the situation for lawyers in each country. For example, if they create a hurdle, like a test which is very difficult to crack, we will also do the same here for their lawyers looking to practice here.”
Legally India and Mint reported earlier this week that in discussions with Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) and the Bar Council of India (BCI), the government was taking a proactive approach in liberalisation the legal market, possibly within the next two years.
Legally India investigates in Mint how special interests have succeeded at and could end up indefinitely stalling reform of legal services, despite the government's best laid intentions.
Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) president Lalit Bhasin told the Business Standard that a plan of phased entry into India of foreign law firms should begin in 2015, subject to a number of conditions.
Narayan Iyer, who had left Linklaters Singapore in 2009 to join the magic circle firm’s best friend Talwar Thakore & Associates, has been appointed as head of the India practice.