The 86-year-old senior advocate and politician Ram Jethmalani is a living legend of the criminal bar that is unlikely to ever fade quietly into the background. Despite his self-proclaimed desperation to retire he was recently instructed to co-defend former IPL chairman Lalit Modi, fought for Anil Ambani against his estranged brother in the Supreme Court and won the presidential election to the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) last month, vowing to clean up the tainted body.
Unafraid of controversy, Jethmalani remains as outspoken as ever and Legally India talks to him about the practice of law, why he thinks that foreign law firms would benefit Indian lawyers, how a bar exam is not necessary and how the corruption, backlog of cases and decline of the legal profession are squarely the government’s fault.
Legally India (LI): You have been elected as the President of Supreme Court Bar Association, What are your priorities as the new President of SCBA?
Ram Jethmalani (RJ): There are so many issues which have to be looked into. The SCBA is the apex organisation to look into the interests of the lawyers throughout the country. You see there is a feeling of corruption in the system, and the higher judiciary has also not been able to keep itself away from it. We need to do something about it.
From the previous experiences, we have seen that there are problems with the present system of appointment of judges. We need to look into this also, may be we need to amend the constitution to do this. The Supreme Court Bar Association shall give its valuable suggestions in this regard. In addition to this, there are minor issues which I need to look into. To begin with, membership of SCBA is an issue.
In September last year, around 500 advocates applied to SCBA membership, in December around 1500 advocates applied for membership. Now they have deposited their membership fees, the SCBA shouldn’t have any concerns so as to who paid for their membership fees. I have to also look into the facilities provided to the bar in Supreme Court.
LI: Is it true that you had been approached to fight the SCBA election? Or did you contest out of your own choice?
RJ: All these years, I never thought of contesting elections of the bar. But yes, there were pressures from the influential section of the bar. They wanted me to take control of SCBA. If there was no pressure, I would not have contested. Whether you win or you get defeated is a part of democracy, but at my age, if you get defeated, it would be very shameful. So I decided to fight after considering my stature and experience. With the results, it is clear that the Bar has reposed confidence in me.
LI: Do you think corruption has risen in the Indian judiciary?
RJ: No. I don’t think that corruption has risen. If that was so, there was not a chance for improvement.
LI: What do you have to say about the compulsory bar exam proposed by the Bar Council of India? Do you think it will bring in talent in the profession?
RJ: I don’t think that there is a need for compulsory bar exam.
Earlier, there used to be a rule which provided for compulsory chamber practice for one year under a senior advocate. But that rule was also abused, the youngsters never practiced but got the certificates from the senior advocates. If that rule is enforced again, it may help in bringing better talent in the profession. You see there is a concept of advocate-on-record [AoR] in the Supreme Court, but the non AORs are also practicing.
LI: Don’t you think that there is a general deterioration in the standards of this profession?
RJ: When we talk to decline in standards, its not about decline in judiciary only. It is a general decline. There is a decline in the capabilities of law teachers and professors, there is a decline in the Bar Council, there is a decline in various things which result in decline in standards of judiciary and we have to look into it.
LI: You talk of a decline in standards - don’t you think that because of decline, there is more a need for a bar exam?
RJ: No, I as I explained earlier, there is no need for compulsory bar exam.
LI: Do you think that some vested interests in the judiciary are preventing the meaningful development of the profession?
RJ: No, I don’t think that there is some vested interest preventing the meaningful development of the profession. But if there is a general decline at the highest level then it is a tragic situation. This is the problem but I don’t think that there is some conspiracy to prevent the development of the profession. And to my knowledge, I don’t think that somebody would want that our Judiciary should continue with the pathetic situation.
LI: What’s your take of entry of foreign law firms in India? Do you think that it will affect the interests of Indian lawyers?
RJ: I fully support the entry of foreign law firms in India. But it should be done on the basis of reciprocity. We should allow the lawyers of those countries who allow our lawyers to practice. And if foreign lawyer would come, we shall see an increase in the standards of our lawyers also.
And let me tell you, the foreign lawyers shall not go to the court to argue the cases, they shall do more of transactional and drafting work. Now so much documentation is needed in transactional dealings so need an expert to understand those documents. So I think there is a big room for foreign lawyers. If the foreign lawyers come, they will set up big law firms in India, they will hire Indian lawyers only.
This will also bring prosperity for Indian lawyers and I think that there will be an increase in the standards of the Indian Bar. But the entry of foreign lawyers shall not be possible without the cooperation of Indian Bar.
And the people who oppose foreign lawyers they must understand that it is a short sighted view. There shall be an increase in the opportunities for Indian lawyers.
LI: What is your view on Indian Law firms? Are you satisfied with them?
RJ: I don’t know much about the working of law firms. And we have not seen any grievances against the law firms. But I know about some law firms, they are doing extremely well. They work with honesty and efficiency. I wish them luck.
LI: You have completed more than 65 years at the bar, don’t you think of retirement now?
RJ: I do want to retire. Because of this, five years back I had put a signboard outside my gate that I have stopped accepting fresh cases. But what do I do? People do not let me retire. Sometimes, I get tremendous pressure to take up a case and many a times, the cause is such that I have to take up the case. Otherwise, I want to stop. Most of the high profile lawyers make money on Mondays and Fridays, but I work for free on these two days.
LI: Who do you think is responsible for the backlog of cases in India?
RJ: Everybody keeps accusing the judiciary for the backlog of cases but I think government is the one who is responsible for this huge backlog of cases. The Law Commission, in its report, had recommended setting up of court five times of the existing strength.
Why doesn’t the government appoint more judges - who prevents them from appointing court staff. They think judiciary is a revenue-earning department but they should treat it otherwise. One judge can not do the work of five judges and if you do it he will not be able to deliver justice.
We always say, justice delayed is justice denied but we have to understand that justice hurried is justice buried. And the government doesn’t take interest in this issue.
In fact the government wants that there should be corrupt judges. If there is a corrupt judge, you can easily control him. So the government encourages corrupt judges. How do these corrupt judges come? From where they come? Who appoints them? One has to look into this also.
Comments
It would be great, Mr. Jethmalani, if you could come up with sound reasons for that.
R we only going to point out loopholes in administration of justice. If government is responsible for this y dont you file an RTI and ask for steps being taken for appointment of judges.
Ok i agree that we have less number of judges but do we have remaining judges competent. If they had been competent the result of bhopal gas tragedy would not have came this way.
Dear Mr. Ram jethmalani y dont u take steps against such kind of injustice. Arent you earning much . Do something for people. I think you had done enough for the private persons.
In India lawyers are at the mercy of a few oligarchic families. The young lawyers in India depend on these families to create jobs. What the **** is this? The ****ing 14th century??
Because most Indian advocates and law firm owners have treated their juniors as slaves for decades, they are dreading the consequences of foreign law firms. They know that the younger lot will all flock to the foreign law firms and tell their old bosses to get lost.
And I think LI should do some more interviews of the owners of big law firms. We want to hear the views of Som Mandal, Jyoti Sagar and Rajeev Luthra. What do they think about entry of foreign law firms, compulsory bar exam etc.. Keep doing the good work LI
"Why don't you interview Mr. Prashant Popat ?"
bcoz according to this site it's only the anti-reformists who are the main voices of the legal profession. I have seen ONLY ONE article on this site (by a Kaden Boris partner) favouring foreign law law firms!! And even then LI promptly featured a so-called rebuttal by Lalit Bhasin!! And may I say that the rebuttal had very poor arguments.
LI loves to feature news about Balaji. Here's something it did not say and I hope it will not be censored: Balaji has claimed to be part of the Association of Indian Lawyers. This is a body based in Calcutta with known links to the CPIM. Bikash Bhattacharya, a CPIM politician who claims to be a lawyer, was among the architects of the anti-foreign law firm movement in the late-90s. As we all know, the CPIM is determined to take India back to the days of licence raj, so that India can never pose a threat to their beloved China. It is very very interesting that the AIL did not file the petition in the Calcutta High Court, whose judges regularly rule against the evil CPIM.
The CPIM is certain to be kicked out next year. Hopefully it will also mark the end of the AIL.
But I do know that Legally India does not have a strong agenda one way or another on liberalisation. However, we also recognise the fact that there are two sides to this debate and both have some merits.
We therefore generally do not go out of our way to find people to interview who are for or against foreign firms because, to be honest, most of the arguments we have already reported in the past or have been made numerous times in comments or forums.
If someone says something new about it or is in an influential position to do something about it or there is a new development (pro or con), we generally mention it.
If you have a new take or argument on the issue, please let us know and we'll be happy to look into it and/or report if relevant.
Best regards,
Kian
I am surprised you consider the foreign law firms issue a "debate" with "two sides" and shockingly, with merit on both the sides.
No argument worth the name has been made by the anti group, excepting the shamelessly outright protectionist views that have been aired (sometimes by managing partners who don't care if they are stoned on LI for their comments), and only if at all protectionism shielding India's top 5 family firms that milk India Inc and India LLB is one that even merits consideration. The upside in allowing foreign law firms is tremendous, and this is, for the greatest part, undisputed: to the profession, to the fraternity and generally, to the legal services recipient community.
May I ask you what makes you consider there is "merit" in the anti-liberalisation argument?
I sincerely hope you will let us all know.
I also want to share something. Recently, I met a Union Minister at a lunch and my senior asked him about the issue in front of me (I cannot name the minister but he is very well-known and has a portfolio related to business and economic affairs). The Minister said that he personally has nothing against foreign firms and there is not much opposition within the UPA, as it's not an "aam aadmi" issue. He also pointed out that the LLP Act was passed without trouble. He said that certain law firms and lawyers are lobbying together and they are the only ones halting things, not the government.
And ultimately your view on this will boil down whether you believe that globalisation should be fettered or not.
So here are some points of view against foreign firms, off the top of my head.
1. Basically a derivative of the mom n pop shop argument. Why did India not allow foreign supermarkets and retailers in for so long? Sure, perhaps prices would go down, quality of products would increase but part of the original retail 'culture' would disappear. Plus there is a massive voter block and lobby group of shopkeepers of course. Also completely personally, for example, I would not welcome the UK or US supermarket culture from dominating Indian food retail - it creates many of its own problems but I won't go off tangent.
2. Should a legal market not have its own healthy ecosystem of domestic firms, rather than just copy-pasting foreign structures wholesale and becoming another carbon-copy practice of all other jurisdictions? Not everything about legal advice in the US or UK is perfect either. Sure, it is arguably more professional in structure, gives more opportunities and jobs but arguably the personal touch and relationship with clients is disappearing and legal services are increasingly just another service industry.
3. Maybe the practice of law is something special and unique to each country - after all, lots of European countries only recently liberalised their legal profession (and some have not at all - Switzerland might be one example, but I am not 100% sure.) Maybe the practice of law, which is fundamental to each nation, should be kept in domestic hands, at least partly, instead of being made subject to globalised entities where India is just another profit centre.
4. Many European countries have lost their local independent firms almost completely, and most are now dominated by the Anglo-Saxon corporate law firm ethos, which is largely profit driven and accounting for a global partnership.
5. Timing. When should foreign firms be allowed in, if at all? Would you have been fine with it 10 years ago, when Indian firms would no doubt have been steamrollered? If your answer is no, then what has changed now? Are there enough independent strong firms in India right now that would remain after the entry of foreign firms? It's a matter of degree, and many of the domestic players may feel that they are not yet at a size where they would survive, although they might feel they are ready in one year, 5 years or 10 years. Who knows. And maybe in the meantime the second tier of Indian law firms will grow as big as the second tier firms in the UK, US or elsewhere? Competition does not only have to come from outside, although it may be faster.
6. If I was a partner or sole proprietor making lots of money, why exactly should I invite competition in? Altruism towards young lawyers who want higher paying jobs and more options? Sympathy for clients who think they'd get better service and more competitive and lower prices? As any other industry would, the people controlling the legal industry too are reasonable to act in their own interest and try to prevent competition as long as possible. Microsoft did as much for years, as would any other dominant market player if they can get away with it. Sure, it may not seem fair to some but the system is often not fair.
Anyway, I really do not want to bog this down into a massive off-topic debate.
All I am saying is, either side may validly have a strongly held opinions or belief on this. Whether one is wrong or right depends on who you happen to be or what ideologies you espouse.
In any case, while playing devil's advocate somewhat above, I personally have no vested interests or bias for either side of this debate.
Best regards,
Kian
Briefly, the responses to your points are:
1. The supermarket illustration at least has a sizeable domestic interest to protect. That is absent in this context.
2. I do not see what is "healthy" in blocking foreign firms. There is nothing artistic about the legal industry. Lawyers need clients to service and clients need competent lawyers to assist them. If foreign law firms will increase the range of choice, for all interested: clients, the firms as such and lawyers, where is the question of anything else that needs to be considered in our collective judgment?
3. On similar lines, what is special and unique in letting domestic firms continue to rule the roost? India is what it is today because of the 1991 liberalisation. If the big four can be present here in India in the accounting industry, why not law firms? And mind you, much of the Indian Bar consisted of foreigners during the colonial days. What of firms like Fox Mandal, Little & Co., Mulla & Mulla, Crawford Bayley and a host of other Anglo Indian ones that were JVs between Indians and the British? Did the Bar not see much better days when foreigners were here?
4. The eradication of local practice will not happen in India. Foreign firms are not eyeing litigation. They want a piece of the transactional cake. Transactional practice is only going to get competitive and that is healthy for all of us. The Indian firms that are sought to be protected represent no more than a handful of family members who hold obscene equity stakes in these firms. Ask a salaried partner if he cares should AMSS lose out to the magic circle? He'll tell you in private he finds the magic circle better - if not for anything else - for the lockstep that some of them implement.
5. Timing. One of the top 5 Indian firms is invariably on EVERY big ticket deal that you see in the papers. What are you talking about? Has AMSS not grown enough? Has AZB not been good enough for Clifford Chance to partner it? Is Trilegal obscured? Has Khaitan lost out on any of its colonial day clients? Has Fox Mandal not set up shop in more places than any other firm, including a London office? The problem I see with your argument is that your conception of the local practice is in terms of local firms, which are in turn nothing more than a few family members seemingly in a partnership with the rest of the lawyering community.
6. Protectionism. Why would you put yourself as a partner in one of the local firms? I can name 10 people in India who will see themselves in that position: 4 Shroffs, 1 Luthra, 1 Sagar, 1 Bhasin, 2-3 Khaitans. The Mandals have been forthright enough not to be included in that list. So where does that leave us?
All of your arguments are understandable if the law firm culture in India was as diverse and democratic as we would all like it to be. Sadly, it's an elitist conception of a few oligarchs.
There is nothing wrong if editors have biases. Fox news is pro-Republican, NDTV is pro-Congress, Pioneer is pro-BJP etc. Kian also has every right to be pro-AMSS, pro-Khaitan etc. It's his fundamental right to support an oligarchic economy. However, it is essential to air other views. Even NDTV allows a token BJP person in its panel discussions. Isn't it odd that the Bhasins and Balajis get so much publicity here (despite getting barracked by readers), but we hardly hear from the prominent people who support foreign law firms? Since most readers of LI seem to support foreign law firms, surely the reformists are not in a minority, as some sections would like people to believe?
As I said, I was merely responding to a query asking for some potential arguments against foreign firms, but I do not want to get bogged down in a long discussion.
@24, I think your responses are valid arguments for the most part. But changing the status quo is always harder than keeping it. Probably merely good arguments therefore may not do by themselves unless and until some of the real decision makers get convinced that there is a compelling reason for them to act.
Like a prior commenter @21 said - most ministers are probably not opposed to common firms but why should they bother to act? It won't win them many votes and the aam aadmi won't care. If anything, a large number of advocates is still convinced, probably erroneously, that foreign firms would affect them directly. Ergo, there are bigger fish to fry for politicians right now and not a single one would stick their neck out and risk alienating influential senior lawyers and advocates.
The last time in the 90s or so I believe when legal liberalisation came up in politics, in fact, advocates staged a massive strike and march on Lok Sabha (I am not 100% sure on the details of this).
@25 As mentioned above, I was responding to a specific request to only list one side of the arguments. I think the pro-liberalisation arguments have been made enough times in public and on these forums by readers and several other interview subjects to save me from repeating them.
And finally, in all honesty, why would an editor of a legal news publication have a bias against foreign law firms? You don't think that the interesting news stories we could write would increase tenfold if foreign firms did enter India? Surely, that would be in our personal editorial interest.
But until then, we will not take sides and will continue sitting on the fence so we can report the facts and developments impartially, which I believe is more important than pleasing readers with our editorial policies or playing a popularity contest.
Finally, the senior public proponents of liberalisation you can count on several hands and many of these have been written about plenty in the public domain already.
We will not be running an editorial campaign for either side but if there is a reason to interview someone other than just liberalisation, we will do so and include their views.
Best regards,
Kian
Editorially, I felt disappointed that you had featured that as part of the news flow on the home page rather than as an expression of opinion which should have rightly been relegated to one of the panes in the sides.
We clearly marked Lalit Bhasin's anti-liberalisation views as an opinion piece, even in the title.
http://www.legallyindia.com/20100203457/Legal-opinions/opinion-collectives-wisdom-should-foreign-firms-be-allowed-at-all
All opinion pieces are largely unedited and this one in particular was a response to the previous piece by Hemant Bhatra arguing that foreign firms should be allowed in. Lalit Bhasin's article also linked directly to Hemant Bhatra's.
http://www.legallyindia.com/20100128427/Legal-opinions/opinion-why-the-lawyers-collective-judgment-is-wrong
Both were largely unedited and both were widely read and featured on the front-page. This seemed to have been the fairest possible way for us to do it.
Secondly, these were the only two major articles we have carried that argued exclusively for or against on the issue.
They were also the first and we thought it would be useful to get both anti and pro views on the record, so the arguments could get aired in the open.
I believe that has been done. Until someone says something new or gets elected to a position of power where their opinion is relevant, we will carry another interview, perhaps exclusively on the subject, or we would allow them to write an opinion piece on it.
Silly boy! Don't you know that children of Indian law firm owners always become partners? Hence, they ARE family businesses. You also left out many many other firms where family members are partners (e.g. Anand and Anand, where I had interned). And don't forget that AMSS, which you accept to be a family business, is very influential. The Shroffs are a very powerful family with a lot of clout and they can influence government policies like other powerful business families (Ambani, Birla, mahindra etc)
In India since the days of caste system we have had family trades. This idea is outdated in the globalised world, whether AMSS likes it or not.
sir pls look in this matter and see that justice to done to both and pls make divorce and annulment faster as time just goes on without any solution
would be grateful if if did something on this issue
I mean no disrespect, but if there is such a big lobby that is unhappy with the working conditions provided by Indian law firms (and since a lot of people on here seem to complain about the relatively bigger firms), why haven't you guys done anything about it yet? Or have you? I presume you've spent time and been associated with the aforementioned firms while you air your angst against the family-owned firms.
I would love to hear about your views, but i already think that either the pro-liberalization lobby isn't big enough or doesn't have the fortitude to make their opinions count. Size and tenacity are never found wanting in anything that is regressive in nature, especially in India. As a youngster i've seen it first hand in incidents of attacks at Mangalore pubs by the Rama Sene and the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike. But when it comes to protests demanding a mere extension of a deadline, you'll only see a handful of faces.. a lot of silence.