A thinktank said that any plans for economic reforms may have lost momentum as the Congress-led government is preparing for the state elections, lacks consensus and would struggle forcing through legislation, reported the Economic Times . Legal market liberalisation was not expressly mentioned in th...

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he Bar Council of India’s (BCI) ambitious weekend meeting decided to introduce draft lawyers’ ethics guidelines in two days and how to begin decreasing the number of law colleges in India. But due to time constraints the body had to postpone its decision on the entry of foreign law firms in respect of the Chennai writ petition, as well as Trilegal’s queries about converting to a limited liability partnership (LLP).

The law ministry has inducted nine legal experts into the 19th Law Commission of India, including NLU Delhi vice-chancellor Ranbir Singh, Rajasthan High Court judge Shiv Kumar Sharma and former additional solicitor general Amarjit Singh.

The Union law minister Veerapa Moily has publicly said for the first time that the entry of foreign law firms was more of a “transitional problem” rather than “perennial” and that minds should not be shut to “big ideas”, while reasserting the need for “proper capacity building”.

Former Amarchand Mangaldas chief operations officer Bithika Anand and her team parted ways last week from legal industry services provider Rainmaker, eight months after both jointly started up Rainmaker Consulting.

The UK’s Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has finally confirmed its revised guidance for foreign lawyers looking to practice in England and Wales after more than two-years of delay.

A total of 170 candidates are sitting the coming Bombay solicitors examinations next month, although after only 6 per cent passed the last round of the tests the tests will not be made easier.

Practitioners have criticised the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for charging Rs 50 per page for photocopying records of CCI proceedings as an abuse of the body’s dominant position.

The latest Asia-Pacific Human Development Report 2010 entitled “Power, Voice and Rights: A Turning point for Gender Equality in Asia and The Pacific” released by the United Nations on International Women’s Day has recommended proactive action in the field of legal rights for women.

Today’s 2010-11 Union Budget has not directly affected law firms although it could have knock-on effects in several practice areas and save individual junior lawyers almost 30 per cent of tax.

“They say it’s going to be a best-selling political thriller with hero called Recovery and a villain called Deficit” read a Times of India caricature about the ongoing Budget session. Meanwhile, indirect and direct tax practitioners have their eyes firmly on service tax, Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the Direct Tax Code (DTC) as issues that will concern the legal community.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) draft guidelines on approving M&A deals will be published in the coming days, revealed chairman Dhanendra Kumar yesterday (23 February) at a panel discussion during the two-day International Bar Association (IBA) Mumbai M&A conference.

ALMT Legal has voted for South Mumbai and taken on an extra 50 per cent of floor space in Mumbai’s busy Express Towers building, to make room for future expansion.

ALMT Legal partner Hitesh Jain has fallen short of his target after tentatively winning around 199 first preference votes in the preliminary counting rounds in the first five districts out of 37 in the Maharashtra & Goa Bar Council elections, with four other candidate building a potentially strong lead of first preference votes.

The first ballot boxes were unsealed for electronic counting yesterday at the Bar Council offices near Bombay High Court, kicking off the long count to find the winners of the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa elections.

The Delhi Bar Council has formed its election committee and selected temporary members to working committees, as the 25 newly elected members are locked in tough negotiations for the top positions until February.

Sole law firm candidate and Luthra & Luthra partner Vijay Sondhi has won a seat on the Delhi Bar Council in 22nd place out of 25 candidates with almost 640 votes.

The Bombay High Court has decided that the 1961 Advocates Act applies to all lawyers, irrespective of whether they appear in court or act in non-litigious matters. Download the judgment and share your learned views.

International firms Ashurst, Chadbourne & Parke and White & Case have lost the long-running case against the Lawyers’ Collective, with the Bombay High Court having decided today that the practice of all law by foreign firms in India is illegal.

A third candidate, Murari Tiwari, has made the cut in the Delhi Bar Council elections, as voting is expected to conclude by Friday (18 December), with more than half of the 129 candidates already eliminated.