Since 1961, the Indian legal profession has been united into one type of lawyer: the lawyer. All major international law firms headquartered in London have offices in India serving corporate clients with business interests in India, and most of India`s high-quality legal work is handled by London, if not Singapore or Dubai. Lawyers in India must abide by the following rules and regulations set out in the Lawyers Act, 1961 and the rules of the Bar Council of India. Some of these rules, as mentioned below: Practicing as a lawyer in India with a foreign law degree requires speculating about their authenticity and legality. But under the Lawyers Act, an Indian can only graduate from foreign universities approved by the Bar Council of India. The Lawyers Act, 1961 amended and consolidated the Law Societies Act and provided for the establishment of State Bar Councils and an All-India Bar Association – the Bar Council of India as the governing body. The Bar Council of India consists of the Attorney General of India and the Solicitor General of India as ex officio members and one elected member of each of the State Bar Councils. The members of the Councils of the State Bar Association are elected for a period of five years. Some of the main functions of the Bar Council of India are: In India, the legal profession is still considered a noble profession today and is therefore still assessed according to legal ethical standards that may seem outdated in many other overseas jurisdictions, but are considered a very important part of the legal profession in India, despite the overhaul that liberalisation has inevitably brought. The Bar Council of India always adheres to high standards regarding the legal community. An example of this is Rule 36 of the Rules of the Bar Council of India, which prohibits Indian law firms/lawyers from promoting their practice in the market. The judiciary has recognized the content of this restriction in various cases. This is not to say that the Indian Council has been completely blind to the realities of liberalization, as evidenced by its decision to amend section 36 and add a caveat allowing lawyers to maintain websites about themselves or their law firms in order to disseminate information so that people can make informed decisions.
Proponents of the in-house counsel movement generally cite three types of arguments to justify a greater role for in-house counsel: an economic argument that strengthening in-house legal services will reduce legal costs; a substantive argument that in-house counsel provide better legal advice than external lawyers because of their in-depth knowledge of the company`s operations and culture; and a professional argument that in-house counsel are better positioned to be the custodians of community engagement and the long-term interests and values of the company. In The In-House Counsel Movement, we propose six interrelated parameters against which these claims can be evaluated: When people leave regulators and open their own private practice as lawyers, regulators often still rely on them to help the regulator design better regulations because that institutional memory is there. For example, imagine we`re colleagues at the SEC and I`m leaving to open my own private practice, but you know I have experience working with a particular segment of the market – let`s say I`m good at identifying insider trading better than anyone else. You can always count on me when it comes to writing insider trading policies because you know I`m good at it. The revolving door increases the interface between government and the private sector, creating enormous opportunities for lawyers to influence political discourse. Submit your article via our online form Click here Note* we only accept original articles, we do not accept articles that have already been published on other websites. For more information, please contact: editor@legalserviceindia.com But there`s something else at stake – a bigger impact on the evolution of the corporate floor in India. Marc Galanter, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has already distinguished two types of lawyers in the American legal profession: duty counsel and strategic counsel. Military lawyers are the traditional lawyers who argue in court and focus on the specific claims and facts of the case. Strategic lawyers view their clients` interests not only as a component of how they work in the courtroom, but also as a component of how they serve their clients` long-term interests – among many others.
Zaveri argues that his research on Indian law firms and government policies shows that advocacy for Indian companies is shifting from the service type to the strategic one, just as in the United States. The Bar Council of India and the relevant State Bar Associations are responsible for regulating the profession. There are 18 State Bar Associations and two Supreme Court Authorities (Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand). India has a restrictive political regime in its legal services sector. The entry of foreign law firms remains prohibited in India. Despite the emergence of national law schools and improving standards in legal education, there are still not enough litigators to meet the demands of India`s growing population. There is a lot of potential for future growth of the bar. The concentration of lawyers and law firms usually takes place in large cities. In cities, urban areas and villages, lawyers generally work in private practice. There are also some peculiarities of the Indian legal profession that are perhaps quite surprisingly similar to those of the pre-independence period and that perhaps make it unique, as Marc Galanter finds in his article entitled „The Indian Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization“ (2012).
These characteristics form the basic structure of the legal profession in India: This article provides an overview of the governance of practicing lawyers in India – namely the Lawyers Act. The Act regulates the registration, code of conduct and general functioning of the Council of the Bar Association of India. Each of them has a defined procedure that includes rules and regulations for their actions. As perverse as it may seem, the „unethical“ behavior of lawyers, especially at lower levels, is emblematic of their quest for empowerment and identity, which has long plagued elites. Legal ethics is therefore an epiphenomenon of a larger metamorphosis currently underway in India. From a largely feudal society, it is painfully slowly and sporadically transformed into a modern democratic state. As a low-intensity democracy, the Indian state lacks the capacity and commitment to catalyze this process. The grotesque moral aberrations of the legal brotherhood are only one facet of this transformation.
During the British period, the current legal system developed in India. Before 1726, the courts no longer derived their authority from the British Crown, but from the East India Company. The Bar Council of India Trust is a public charitable foundation that aims to promote legal research and education. The Trust publishes a quarterly magazine called Indian Bar Review. It also organizes a national moot court competition, as well as various seminars and workshops as part of its legal education program. A scholarship and placement programme for young lawyers to financially support the best candidates has been launched and will be continued by the Trust. The Lawyers Act, 1961 allows foreign lawyers to practise in India on a reciprocal basis, as provided for in section 47. The highly controversial issue of allowing foreign lawyers to practice in India has yet to receive a wave from the Supreme Court, and a blank solution for the same is expected. However, the Madras High Court issued the ruling for foreign lawyers who are licensed to practice in India under the Fly In and Fly Out Acts. Fly In and Fly Out allows foreign law firms or foreign lawyers to temporarily travel to India to provide legal advice to their clients on foreign legal issues.
However, following the decision of the Mumbai High Court in the case of Lawyers Collective vs Bar Council of India & Ors, foreign law firms or foreign lawyers have been denied the right to practise as lawyers in India. However, the Madras High Court supports their proposal on the grounds that since foreign law firms or lawyers do not have an official space in India, they do not fall under the act of registration, but they can practice entering and leaving. The struggle for the same continues among Indian lawyers and law firms, and currently foreign lawyers and firms are being denied the right to practice in India. Beyond law firms, this shift can also be seen elsewhere in corporate advocacy in India. namely, in the General Counsel of Corporate Legal Services.
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