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The BCI met in Delhi on Saturday and Sunday (21 and 22 August) with a long list of points that new BCI chairman and solicitor general Gopal Subramanium (pictured) wanted to include on the agenda. All BCI Members wore ceremonial robes for the first time and took an oath in a ceremony that Subramanium said was “very moving”.
Lawyers ethics
Subramanium told Legally India that the BCI passed a resolution to adopt draft rules of lawyers’ ethics, which would be published on its website for comments with a hope to adopt them at the next meeting of the regulatory body on 2 October.
He explained that the draft ethics rules were similar to South Africa’s lawyers’ ethics rules (the General Council of the Bar of South Africa’s ethics rules can be downloaded here).
He also said that the BCI passed a resolution requiring all new advocates to swear an oath from December, the precise wording of which would be published soon. Advocate Elizabeth Seshadri examined such an oath in her recent Legally India Legal Opinion on the rise of the “pseudo-lawyer”.
Legal education and law schools
Following on from Subramanium’s hopes to reduce the number of India’s law schools, as first reported by Legally India last month, the BCI chief explained that the body had decided at its meeting to begin setting out a list of criteria, on the basis of which law schools could be assessed and restructured if necessary.
Out of 913 law schools in India, Subramanium said that around 300 were “condemnable” and had been impossible for the BCI to even contact over the past months in a pilot survey, which aimed to give the BCI better view of India’s legal education landscape.
However, a total of 600 colleges were contacted as part of the exercise and had promised to assist the BCI with its plans for communicating the bar exam and reforming legal education, said Subramanium, and some of those colleges had never before been contacted by the BCI.
The BCI meeting also made further progress on a common curriculum for all national law schools and would work towards completing this by December.
Foreign firms
The agenda also included formulating an official position on the issue of legal market liberalisation, as requested by the Chennai High Court in the case against 31 foreign law firms.
However, the BCI did not manage to address the issue at this meeting, Subramanium told Legally India. “We didn’t have time at all and there are still many, many things to do. We have to give this a fair hearing.”
The BCI would hold a meeting on 2 October 2010 to decide on the issue before the next date of a hearing in the Chennai writ petition on 5 October, said Subramanium.
LLP
Trilegal partners Anand Prasad and Sitesh Mukherjee attended the BCI meeting on Sunday to ask whether or not law firms were allowed to convert to limited liability partnerships (LLP).
However, Prasad recounted that the full presentation was postponed to another day as the BCI had “had a lot on their plate”. “We will get an opportunity for a full-blown discussion later,” said Prasad.
Subramanium has outlined an long list of legal education and legal regulatory reform-plans for his two-year tenure as BCI chairman. Photo courtesy of Rainmaker
Comments
Well done, GS, I hope he manages to keep up the momentum!
And GS, you say that 300 law schools are "condemnable". Why did the BCI give them accredition? There needs to be a CBI investigation just like there was againt the MCI. There also needs to be an investigation into whether the anti-liberalisation law firms are using illegal methods to lobby against foreign law firms. The stink of corruption in the legal profession is getting stronger by the day!
Surely, many Indian law firms would not want such a regulator or at least would want a an excessive delay in getting such a regulator in place. However, now that a law firm regulator has turned out to be an unintended consequence of the Madras HC litigation it surely puts such law firms in an awkward place!
But I doubt anything substantial will come about. The vested interests are just too powereful - and GS could prove to be a easy push-over. He is certainly no Seshan-like CEC protected by the constitution (although only Seshan after a long line of rubber stamp predeccessors realised he did have a spine after all- lumbar support from the consti!).
But at least GS has displayed he has got some plans for overhaul of the benighted profession...whether they come to fruition only time will tell.
More inspection committe ?
More money will flow...for these reformists.A new bribe & survive game.
Is this important issue any less significant than having the bar exam this year or the next year? or is it that the vested interests are ensuring a delay?
lots of questions Mr. GS, wonder if you would like to answer these.......
I invite suggestions for the fanciest name for this bar game.