Much of the confusion with regard to the entry of foreign law firms is caused by the misinformation circulating around us. The public is ill-informed about the consequences of their arrival. When one looks at the impact of the arrival of foreign firms in other sectors such as accounting, one can only conclude that with the opening up of the sector, the earnings of Indian professionals have gone up along with the quality of service to the customer.

Traditionally, legal services were rendered by two classes of professionals — barristers and solicitors. In England and Wales, solicitors form the largest part of the legal profession with more than 97,000 practitioners, whereas barristers form a small group with 14,400 members. The role of the barrister comprises of advocacy (conducting proceedings in court) and giving specialist legal opinions. Solicitors advice their clients on a range of matters affecting their rights, including transactional work but their work does not include advocacy. In India, these two roles are fused; an advocate enrolled with the Bar Council of India (the body that regulates professionals) is competent to perform both and often does so.

Nevertheless, it is probably this traditional classification of services that has created a sort of invisible division in the legal work done today; top-drawer corporate and commercial work is done by city-based law firms that employ the services of advocates who predominantly specialise in transactional work. Leading Indian law firms concentrate on work that a solicitor firm in England might do. Though most of these do have a litigation division, the bulk of the work and the revenue come from non-litigious work. Take for instance, the revenues of the UK’s leading solicitors firm that specialises in transactional work, Clifford Chance, that has a turnover of £1,194 million and made a net profit of £397.9 million last year.

Hence, it is not surprising that much of the opposition to foreign law firms has come from the Indian law firms. Without doubt, foreign law firms would look for a share of the solicitors’ practice. You can safely bet that none of these Oxbridge-educated, fat-salary drawing solicitors from Europe or elsewhere would be interested in sweating it out in the Tis Hazari courts or the Mofussil courts, dabbling in a newly-learned vernacular. Foreign law firms are not here to compete with the Indian lawyers in the conduct of court proceedings. They are here for the transaction work.

Despite the resistance to their entry, foreign law firms have tie-ups and associate offices in India with whom they continue to work. Some foreign law firms boast of an active ‘India practice’ despite not having set up shop here. Their Indian team is either based in London or in other Asian cities from where they conduct transaction work, Conversely, and for the same reason, a number of Indian law firms have offices abroad.

Under section 7(1) of the Advocates Act 1961, one of the duties of the Bar Council of India is “to recognise on a reciprocal basis foreign qualifications in law obtained outside India for the purpose of admission as an advocate under this Act”. When it comes to legal education, India recognises the bachelor’s degree in law of many jurisdictions for pursing a master’s degree in an Indian university — a jurisdiction being the power or extent of a court within the limits of which a lawyer can practice.

Moreover, a legal academic is accepted without barriers across various jurisdictions (say in Mumbai or Chennai or Patna) to teach and to engage in legal research. So there seems to be no problem in pursuing higher studies in law or in teaching or researching in law across jurisdictions. The trouble starts when the focus shifts to earning big money with your legal qualifications. Most jurisdictions have bar examinations that have to be cleared by foreigners to practice within that jurisdiction (for instance the Bombay or the Madras High Court respectively). A similar requirement in India will be welcome as it would regulate the standard of the professionals entering the bar.

The Government has shown interest in making Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) a reality in India and has taken efforts to have an enactment in place to govern it. This can be seen as a welcome measure for chartered accountant firms and law firms to conduct their business in India. The Bar Council is also looking into the requests for relaxing the constraints on advertising the legal profession.

A significant number of Indian law graduates are being recruited, either as associates or as trainees, by the leading law firms in UK. For the last few years, the leading law schools have attracted the attention of foreign law firms in their campus recruitment programmes. The message seems to be clear. If we do not allow the foreign law firms here, they are going to take our brightest law graduates, camp them in London, and charge us in pounds sterling.

The strongest opposition to the entry of foreign firms has come from family-run partnership firms, some of which are operated on feudalistic lines with scant regard to merit and ability when it comes to offering partnerships in these firms. UK’s leading firms, like Clifford Chance with 617 partners, will be welcomed by many for their professionalism and open values.

Foreign law firms should be allowed to operate on a par with the Indian law firms. We should allow them to operate on a level-playing field not because of our obligations under the WTO or on the grounds of reciprocity and international comity.

They should be allowed so that they bring with them a fresh brand of professionalism, competence and expertise that the legal profession here has failed to develop indigenously.

Incompetence at all levels will be exposed and clients will have more to choose from, both in terms of quality and service. Their arrival should come as rude and welcome shock to most of their counterparts in India who have for generations run law firms like personal fiefdoms bereft of professionalism and vision.

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