Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan (QUES), the world’s largest law firm devoted to business litigation and arbitration, is for now not contemplating setting up of any office in India even as it sees technology and intellectual property besides international arbitration as key practice areas here to explore in the coming days, its Founder & Chairman John B Quinn has said.

This global law firm is among the first set of foreign law firms that have evinced interest to spread their wings into the Indian legal market after its opening up by the Bar Council of India last week.

Describing the BCI move of opening up as “good step”, Quinn however made it clear that his India visit was planned six months back and had little to do with the BCI announcement of last week. 

“We are here to learn and form relationships and to listen and find ways that we can contribute. So opening an office is not really top of mind for us now, and I guess it’s very clear”, Quinn added.

Quinn also sought to allay the fears among the domestic legal fraternity in India that the opening up of legal sector to foreign law firms will end up being a “zero sum game”.

“There’s a fear in the hearts of some people that this is a zero sum game…that for every piece of business an international firm gets, that’s a piece of business that an Indian law firm would have gotten. I don’t know if that’s true. When the pie grows, there is more work for everybody. 

On competition

Quinn said the latest opening up by BCI is being perceived in certain quarters of Indian political and business community as a “radical (policy) change”. “But from my perspective, seeing what happens in other countries and the different regimes, it’s not that radical a change. I mean, I can remember when the Japanese legal market first opened up 25 years ago, everybody among Japanese lawyers said that international law firms are going to kill us. You know, all the business will go to the international firms. You look at Tokyo today. It’s dominated by four or five firms and all are Japanese firms. The same could very well happen here “

Currently, US-headquartered Quinn Emanuel has over 1,000 litigators and Arbitration practitioners working out of 31 offices in eleven countries.

Raising legal practice standards

He said that the opening up of legal sector to foreign law firms and foreign lawyers has the potential to raise the standard of legal practice here in India. 

“You know, obviously for Indian lawyers to learn about international practice, other firms practices from other parts of the world, and also for foreign firms to learn from Indians about local practice and how best to serve Indian clients. And I think that kind of synergy can only or at least has the potential to raise the standard of practice here”, Quinn added.

Quinn also asserted that the global law firm was not looking to advise or work in India on M&A transactions, an area that has now been opened up for the foreign law firms. 

On opening up of Quinn Emanuel’s office in India, Quinn said “we have no contemplation right now to open an office here. None whatsoever. That’s something that we look at, I suppose, depending on how things develop in Indian market. Nothing is ruled out, okay. But there’s a lot of different strategies in which you can open offices successfully”.

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