Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF)

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has drafted rules to allow foreign lawyers to practice in India, with the law and justice ministry having invited other ministries and three other organisations to discuss the proposals on Tuesday (5 July).

The bar councils are the only remaining speed bump in the government liberalising legal services, the law ministry secretary responsible for implementing the entry of foreign law firms said today.

On 25 August the Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) hosted a meeting with journalists and Arun Jaitley, finance and information and broadcast minister.

Commerce ministry joint secretary Sudhanshu Pandey told a US-Indian delegation today that the government would seek to pass an amendment to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act this session that would allow foreign lawyers to come to India to act for their clients in arbitrations in order to boost domestic arbitrations.

Can your accountant also assist you on drafting a joint venture agreement? Or is this work best left to a lawyer to check for compliance with various rules and legislation? And what happens when one company drops a nasty legal notice on the former joint venture partner? Is when things get contentious and litigious the line where only a lawyer can step in and take care of business?

Endless jobs? Sacks of money for all? Better working conditions for everyone? Young lawyer Dhruv Balai Paul ponders the implications of the possible entry of foreign law firms to India.

The Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) will complain to the Bar Council of Delhi in the coming week against PDS Legal, Advaita Legal and other Indian law firms that are best friends with accountancy firms, as a follow-up to its recent complaints in the council against the Big Four consultancies E&Y, KPMG, PwC and Deloitte for their alleged unauthorized practice of law.

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).

"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 was celebrated by the Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) at a dinner earlier this evening, for having received the Padma Bhushan.

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.

Lalit Bhasin has written in a Business Standard column that he was now in favour of allowing the phased entry of foreign law firms…

Hammurabi Solomon, SS Rana and Karanjawala & Co won in each of the three finals of the Westlaw-Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) Cricket League on Saturday at Delhi’s Hamdard University, coming out on top of 20 other law firm teams to take home trophies.