•  •  Dark Mode

Your Interests & Preferences

I am a...

law firm lawyer
in-house company lawyer
litigation lawyer
law student
aspiring student
other

Website Look & Feel

 •  •  Dark Mode
Blog Layout

Save preferences

senior counsel

26 May 2021

A 2003 graduate from NLIU Bhopal, Gaurav Chopra, has joined the still-tiny but fast-growing club of senior counsel from national law universities (NLUs) by getting bestowed the senior counsel’s gown by the Punjab & Haryana high court, in a round of 27 elevations.

18 September 2019

Senior counsel and 1995 Delhi University law graduate Ritin Rai, who was bestowed the senior counsel title by the Supreme Court earlier this year, has joined London barristers’ chambers 7 King’s Bench Walk as a door tenant, according to its press release.

20 May 2019

PDS Legal partner Tarun Gulati, who had joined in 2013 from Economic Laws Practice (ELP), has been designated senior counsel by the Allahabad high court, as part of a mammoth round of 75 new senior advocates.

29 March 2019

The Supreme Court has elevated 38 lawyers to senior counsel status, a list that unusually also includes some bright up-and-comers and also several graduates of NLSIU Bangalore, which has become a semi-regular fixture in the senior counsel stakes.*

11 December 2018

IndusLaw senior partner and head of litigation and dispute resolution, V Srinivasa Raghavan, has received the senior counsel nod from the Karnataka high court.

27 March 2017

The Delhi high court has designated new senior counsel, including, as long expected, Chander Lall and Akhil Sibal.

23 March 2017

IP powerhouse Singh & Singh & Lall & Sethi (SS&LS), just over two years after it was created in the merger of IP firms Singh & Singh and Lall & Sethi, will be breaking into two again after SS&LS managing partner Chander Lall is expected to get designated this year as a senior advocate by the Delhi high court.

16 March 2017

A petition filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay in the apex court is arguing that legislators should cease practising law because it gives rise to conflict between their duty to client and to the constitution, seeking to extend the restriction that exists on public servants and judges to carry out professions to elected parliamentarians, reported The Hindu:

10 February 2017

The Madras high court has designated 16 advocates to senior counsel, with two or 12.5% being women: G Thilakvathi and N Krishnaveni.

17 December 2016

J Sagar Associates (JSA) partner Amit Kapur was elected senior partner-to-be by JSA’s equity partners at a meeting in Chennai today.

20 May 2016

Screenshot 2016-05-20 11.36.19The Times of India’s (TOI) report on an anonymous “tormented” litigant’s complaint to the Chief Justice of India (CJI), about Delhi high court justice Gita Mittal’s “tardy disposal” of cases, has earned flak from 34 Delhi senior advocates who have written a letter to the newspaper demanding an “unconditional apology”.

20 April 2016

Ganpathy: To make mark as a seniorAZB & Partners Delhi partner Nanju Ganpathy has been designated as senior advocate of the Delhi high court, and talks to Legally India about his career and plans.

19 April 2016

The Delhi high court has elevated 12 lawyers to senior counsel.

01 April 2016

Senior advocates are now temporarily outside the service tax net, as the Delhi high court today stayed the imposition of this tax on them, reported Mint.

Justices S Muralidhar and RK Gauba ordered the stay on the Delhi High Court Bar Association’s (DHCBA) plea that charging senior advocates on the services they provide to their clients, as well as charging the clients on the services they take from senior advocates, amounts to double taxation and is unconstitutional.

The stay order was passed in order to maintain consistency with a similar stay order by the Guajarat high court on 30 March, according to Mint.

The DHCBA had also contended that the function of senior advocates – aiding the court in administration of justice – is not a “taxable service”, according to Live Law which published a copy of the DHCBA’s petition in the Delhi high court.

The union budget 2016 had withdrawn the exemption provided to senior advocates from service tax, effectively increasing the cost of instructing them by 14 per cent, as reported by [legallyindia.com/news/budget-catches-senior-advocates-tribunals-with-wider-service-tax-net

Legally India*].

The budget provisions which had taken away the senior advocates’ exemption were to be effective from today. Previous unsuccessful attempts of the government to levy service tax on lawyers came in 2011 and 2012.

30 March 2016

Bar Council of India (BCI) member S Prabhakaran and 11 other Madras advocates are now senior advocates in the Madras high court, reported the Times of India.

NL Rajah, R Vaigai, Sathish Parasaran, A Sirajudeen, Isaac Mohanlal, R Singaravelan, TP Manoharan, Veera Kathiravan, Karthik, Anand and Xavier Arulraj are the other new senior advocates part of this round of designations in the high court.

This is the first batch of senior designations affected under the new senior designation norms that exist since 2013. Before 2013, advocates could simply nominate themselves for their own designation and if two-thirds of the full court of judges voted in favour of such nomination, the designation was complete. Under the new norms, only advocates who are invited to nominated themselves for the designation, are eligible to apply.

Additionally, only those advocates can be invited who have at least Rs 7 lakh as income tax returns for three previous financial years and publication of a minimum of 15 judgments in reputed law journals.

After this round, the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will have 122 senior advocates on its rolls, according to a statement by the state bar council’s chairman D Selvam to TOI

24 February 2016

dx1lauzoProtesting the transfer order of Delhi high court justice Rajiv Shakdher to the Madras high court, prominent senior advocates in Delhi have written to the Supreme Court collegium requesting it to reverse the order.

18 January 2016

The Bar Council of Kerala will now start constructing the MK Nambyar Academy for Continuing Legal Education, as its foundation stone was laid by Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur yesterday, reported The Hindu.

At the inauguration ceremony, CJI Thakur defended the high litigation fees charged by Supreme Court lawyers and said that these top Indian lawyers also take up many cases pro bono. Legally India and Mint revealed 42 Delhi senior advocates’ fees last year.

Thakur said that the legal profession should not only bring recognition to its practitioners but should be a rewarding one as well. He also said that continuing legal education will empower lawyers to be more effective in the conduct of their cases, and to do justice to the profession.

The leader of the opposition party in the state VS Achuthanandan said that steps should be taken to end the practice of lawyers collecting high fees from clients.

Supreme Court justice Kurian Joseph who was also present at the inauguration, said that the practice of law graduates taking professional oath en-masse should be replaced with them taking oath in the presence of a high court judge so that they “would consider the profession seriously”, reported the New Indian Express.

15 September 2015

As reported in Mint on 8 September, senior advocates charge anywhere between Rs 75,000 and Rs 16.5 lakh per hearing in the Supreme Court, and many appear in several matters per day.

08 September 2015

CashThe post colonial-era building with the red sandstone dome on Delhi’s Bhagwaan Dass Road is home to an elite class of lawyers, who are likely to be the most expensive in the world: they are typically paid between Rs 5 and 15 lakh per hearing.

Interviews by Legally India with more than 32 Delhi lawyers who brief seniors in the Supreme Court and Delhi high court reveal all…