Hey Kian isn't this is a family affair. Father hiring daughter and son in law. What happened to independent journalism. You should also mention that Shwetambra is daughter of Shradul Shroff.

It seems amarchand is not ready to be a professional firm and wants to maintain old family order.

Amarchand and the Shroffs have been clear about being a family firm for years, why the surprise?

Also it is quite dated, the daughter and son-in-law joined a while back!

Kian, this is again a dated story. Also, Shweta Shroff and Naval Chopra are the Shroff daughter and son-in-law; this is a significant fact missed out!!! Please try not to run stories pushed by law firms without checking the facts and making some value add!

Granted that they are family. But it is a bit unfair to stop at saying that because they are both good lawyers (I am not part of the family but I know enough to be able to say this with sincerity). Its not like they both joined as partners. They joined on what could be called "arms-length" i.e. in the position that they would have most likely got in had they not been family. Give some credit where it is due.

Whats all this noise about Naval Chopra being the son-in -law? He is licensed to practise in New York, U.K. and India. How many Indian lawyers can boast of the same?? Also as you have said he trained under the internationally reputed Pratap Amin at Freshfields, so the appointment seems totally professional and NOT "family oriented".

agree...what is principal associate designate? either you are principal associate or you or not! question for naval....does your card actually say that ?

Legal Lady...are you suggesting that the kids would not have been hired if they were not licensed to practice in multiple jurisdictions or trained under the famous pratap amin.....????

ya right!!!!!!!!!!!!!

anyways its just an inane discussion to get into.

its their firm, let them do whatever they want. who cares seriously if they employ all their relatives around the world.

the point is whether its tight knit family owned firm or not it works for them, they are still doing well anyways.

however, its shoddy journalism as the news is quite dated and incomplete, the fact that they are relatives of the managing partner should be documented in the article.

Actually Legal lady I know some 5 other indian lawyers who are licenced to practice in UK and New York!

There is nothing great about being qualified in the UK and NY. I know at least 15 Indians who are qualified in all three jurisdictions. The whole thing is a bit of a show because irrespective of what designation they get when they join - they will inherit the shroff family partnership interest. They could have been called junior designate trainee lawyer but still everybody knows that they will be the senior partners of the firm. It is a bit like Rahul gandhi and the congress party.
[edited]

Hey Kian,

This is precisely the reason your site will remain biased. How you don't mention that fact is beyond everyone here. You're barely three months into your site and already you're having a hard time maintaining objectivity while reporting. Also, since you usually mention the law schools the returnees are from why not in this case? I mean, you didn't talk about the fact they were related to the Shroffs in any way whatsoever, did ya? So why not? Well Naval is from ILS right? You could've mentioned that fact right? But you chose not to. Maybe because he is not from NLS. Bad reporting. F-

Dear Readers,

Thanks for your comments and feedback.

Although not spelled out, the connection would have been clear to most readers from the information that was reported in the story.

Second, there were certain circumstances in this case which justified not drawing the link explicitly. Bias was not one of these circumstances.

Third, I am trying to determine a fair level of when family connections should explicitly be reported, particularly after negative feedback to a previous story.

Having received your views with interest I accept that there is a strong case for reporting such facts explicitly in future.

We hope to peg this at a satisfactory level going forward.

I know it is tempting to see conspiracies or bias, whether that be with respect to schools or firms. I would like to reassert that there was none; if anything, this was a bad judgement call.

If someone wants to talk more about this please email me directly or use the forum, I will be happy to explore and explain the issues in more detail.

Best regards,
Kian Ganz

Well, I do not understand the hue and cry in Naval joining AMSS. I have been in law school with Naval and can say with conviction that he is immensely talented. Also would other top law firms accommodate Naval knowing that he is SS's SIL. Certainly not. Then do you allow the talent to go waste. As such he has joined as an associate and not a partner and he has qualified the NY and ESW Bar exams. That would certainly have nothing to do with he being SIL. Stop silly talk and let people focus on their work.

@11, 13 how many lawyers do you know in total? Of that if only 5 or 15 are qualified in 3 jurisdictions then that says something

@ Kian - i dont think, like others have alluded, that not being sensationalist by stating that Naval is the son-in-law of the managing partner is a crime.

The real story should however been about how firms like mine refused Naval a job (i know its a fact because a partner at [big firm] has told me so) because he was the son-in-law. If I am not wrong, Amarchand was last on Naval's list because of the family link. Shame on us. Shame on how firms in India are run. In the west, this would be called discrimination.

Sorry Naval, I had to bring this out.

Best of luck.
[name of firm deleted]

The immaturity of some of these comments (like 14) amazes. If you cant make up your own mind about facts or information presented in an article and want everything digested for you go read a book of fairy tales. Wake up, all information has bias, inaccuracies, perspective, agenda or all 4. Being an intelligent adult means being able to take the information youre bombarded with every day and extracting the relevant parts and making sense of it yourself. And if you don't like the way someone presents information you have the freedom to go somewhere else for it or to live in a mountain cave, instead of whining.

@ 18. You are amazed. Really? LOL. I am amazed you are amazed at immaturity. You must be deaf. Haven't you ever heard yourself ?

Being intelligent means being able to voice your concerns and not running away from life. So when you don't like something, is this how you deal with it? You have a bad lecturer, so you leave the law school? You have a bad co-worker, so you leave your job? It's fair to say that you are a bitter man. If you don't like something then you voice your concern. Its only when nothing happens that you move on.

And Kian, PLEASE stop the BS. Yes. BS. Not mentioning what has been pointed out by most shows a deliberate intention not to mention it. Stop with the excuses. Had you mentioned it, you could've been assured that you wouldn't have seen any comments drawing any links or hinting at nepotism. The comments you see are not directed at a son-in-law's appointment but at stealth reporting.

Next time you report, please stop and think whether it should be published and don't insult the intelligence of the reader. We do know more than you give us credit for.

[Ed: As ever, I am happy to take on board reader feedback. As I said, the story here is more complicated than it appears but I accept that this case may have been a wrong judgement call. However, I never assumed that readers would not know about or not notice the connection, whether mentioned or not.]

All this talk about Indian lawyers being qualified in multiple jurisdictions raises an interesting question about the developing Indian legal market. Can these lawyers whilst working with Indian law firms advise and/or give opinions on English and/or US federal or state laws? Would there be a market in India for such locally procured foreign law advice? Clearly, given the inherent price competitiveness of Indian law firms compared to those in the US and UK, this could well be an area worth exploring.

I am not sure of the answer, but an Indian lawyer should be required to suspend his Indian practicing licence as in most foreign law firms you are employed, as opposed to Indian firms where you are retained on a retainer basis.

"simply curious" give me a break. First of all do you know the amount of PI insurance a firm needs (and the premium) to practice UK law or New York law and what kind of firm in India can afford such costs. Most of these Indian firms cannot give proper advice on Indian law and the work is genrally done by untrained first years. You really are talking about castles in the sky. On the one hand the Bar Council complains of no level playing field and now you want Mohan Bagan to play in La Liga with Barcelona.

Tintin - break granted. To follow up on your football analogy, every country has different leagues. There is a whole world of football and clubs out there besides Barca and the other super clubs in Europe. So too in law, there are small firms and even individual practitioners. They have been successfully operating for a long time with their own business model.

A couple of foreign qualified lawyers obviously does not a magic circle (or even a silver circle) firm make. But they could advise a client who is unwilling to pay the higher rates of a foreign firm. Not everyone stays in a Four Seasons, not everyone wears Prada, not everyone watches Champions League and so on and so forth.

AyeCaramba - thanks for the very helpful reply. My further thoughts on this below.

This opportunity (if it can be described thus) and the issues relating to it are entirely new for the Indian legal market. As a practical matter, it should be possible for a NY or UK qualified lawyer to maintain their license to practice by complying with the continuing education requirements. The costs are not prohibitive for a well to do corporate lawyer in India leaving aside the discussion on whether an Indian firm will be happy to reimburse them.

I will steer well clear of the argument on professional ethics. The Indian law market is not all that developed and "professional liability" are still two alien words in the lexicons of many Indian lawyers.

As for your reservations about clients wanting a proper name backing their legal opinion, things are not so cut and dried. Quite a few of the IPOs by Indian issuers in the boom years featured lesser known law firms acting for either the lead managers or the issuer. For that matter, even initial advise (without need for actual opinions) may well prove to be valuable for cost-conscious clients.

"Was simply curious but am now" seems out of sync. procuring PI Insurance is not an option its is mandatory to pratices such law. I cant even see a large firm spending such high amounts for this insurance. Without having this insurance no individual orfirm can practise such law. If you are however talking about pratising UK law and NY law on the side without registering with the Law Socirty then it is another matter and illegal. But beware if anything is given in writing suggesting such practise will lead to large lawsuits and blacklisting.

Tintin - I never argued that PI cover would not be required (or should not be obtained). If such insurance is so expensive to get as you aver, I wonder how all the small firms and the solo practitioners manage to legally practice law in these jurisdictions! And do you actually have a feel for how much this cover costs?

I think it's rather far from reality to suggest that the cost of a PI cover is such a serious entry barrier for an Indian firm with reasonably deep pockets to set up a UK or NY practice. As #27 has pointed out, if such were to be the case, you couldn't have solo practitioners or very small law firms in London or NY......which we all know is not the case.

In my opinion, the following are the real key challenges to why Indian law firms couldn't just hire a bunch of local lawyers and start practice in NY or UK law:

1. It's not just individual lawyers that are regulated and licensed in most of these jurisdictions, but organizations as a whole. So, if the registering organization is a foreign law firm, then the applicable bar regulations will not allow such an organization to practise local law, whether or not such a firm employs locally qualified lawyers.Am not too sure about the UK, but I know this to be the case with the US, Singapore and HK at least.

2. Even if the above regulatory issue were to go away, the real entry barrier for Indian law firms to entering mature, established (read "overcrowded") markets like London and NY is that there are way too many highly reputed, deep-pocketed and well-entrenched law firms already in these markets, and the only way an Indian law firm could attract any business at all is if it either establishes a reputation for quality that is much better than existing local law firms (very hard to do in a hurry, given the deep brand equity many international firms have) or be dirt cheap so as to attract the lowest end of legal work there (which I don't see an AMSS or an AZB wanting to do). And again, any firm can offer services cheap only if its overheads are cheap - which amongst the qualified-in-multiple-jurisdictions type Indian lawyers do you see working for Indian law firm wages and living in London or NY? :-)

The international law firms (whether American or Brit) first established themselves as super-powers in their own markets and consistently commanded very high fees and delivered consistently qualitative work.......and then entered markets where the economies were just opening up and therefore, lacked great international standards of legal services and then sought to sell their services as being of monumentally higher quality and reliability for larger and more complex work than the local law firms could provide......and thus gained a very significant toe-hold. Therefore, while the international firms could afford to enter emerging markets with an air of axiomatic superiority, for Indian law firms to do a repeat act in mature markets would not be as smooth sailing, to put it mildly :-)

@28 - interesting point on the registration of the firm itself. Not being at all familiar with the relevant regulations, I wonder if a new firm warehousing only the dually qualified lawyers would get around the restrictions?

For the reasons you have articulated very well, this could only be a very niche practice. Small firms with two-three dually qualified lawyers could never compete with any established foreign firms - that's a given. They'd never be able to compete for the big ticket work or the big clients. However, they may be able to service SMEs or less sophisticated clients in India who need foreign law advice on simple stuff.

#29, yes, absolutely......targeting Indian clients....again, for the low-end and routine stuff....is possible. For example, you could have a firm focused on helping Indian IT companies with US immigration law issues.....and I think such kind of practices certainly could thrive. However, I'd be surprised if many (or should I say "any"!) of the dual-qualified, returning-from-freshfields type would be interested in doing that :-)

Actually I do see potential for lawyers qualified in multiple jurisdictions based in India advising Indian companies on global M&A transactions in the below $10 million range. Actually there are a number of deals of that size which happen for which Indian companies hire small local (mostly non-NY and London) firms. This market is definitely worth a look for lawyers who may be adventurous.

Wonder if there are any grounds for the Bar Council to object to this even if the partners were all Indian and dual qualified.

What is "principal associate designate"?

I am not usually a huge fan of some of the stuff that Amarchand does, and the family angle does irk sometimes, but fair is fair.

Naval may be SSS' son-in-law, but to give credit where credit is due, he has prior experience with a great firm, he is a qualified lawyer, he is sure to have worked on interesting cross border deals, and I know of nothing to suggest that he didn’t deserve to join Amarchand or that he has been given special treatment on account of him being SSS' son-in-law alone.

Also, I am pleasantly surprised to see that he has joined (in effect) as a Senior Associate - which means that he is pretty much where he would be, if not behind, had he joined straight out of law school.

@ Anon5: I totally agree.

@ Kian: I thought it was a little disingenuous for the article to not have mentioned that Shweta was SSS' daughter and Naval his son-in-law. This could have been done without imputing any sort of 'angle' as some of the commentators above have.

@ Legal lady: I have lost count of the number of Indian lawyers who are qualified across jurisdictions. Also, I hope Naval (or any ex-FF associate) has taken from Freshfields more than [only] the training [of] Pratap Amin [...].

@ Simply curious.

It depends I think.

1. In England & Wales and also (for example) NY, a qualified solicitor or attorney admitted to the bar needs to comply with mandatory or minimum continuing legal education related requirements. I have not heard of any Indian law firm which offers to pay for such training of its foreign qualified associates - I could be wrong and of course, some foreign qualified lawyers may be fulfilling MCLE or CPD requirements of their own accord. Most lawyers will (sensibly) elect to ‘suspend’ their right to practice if they will not be in the relevant jurisdiction or be able to fulfil MCLE or CPD requirements.

2. Lawyers are ethically bound to refuse representation where the lawyer does not have the technical expertise or experience to handle the representation. So, if a first year lawyer sets up shop and is presented with a matter which involves the drafting and negotiation of credit derivative documentation, or with a gas tolling agreement, he should, in most cases refuse. Giving a legal opinion is not very different.

3. Additional issues need to be considered. Professional associations have rules in so far as issuing opinions are concerned, which a lawyer in India may not be able to comply with. For one, I can not even begin to imagine the complexity that there will be around an Indian lawyer, giving NY law opinions, in Delhi, to (say) two non Indian clients on a transaction in (say Brunei), from a professional indemnity insurance perspective! Now that is a disaster in waiting!

4. The entire point in getting a formal legal opinion from a lawyer is to be able to sue the lawyer if things don’t work out in respect of the matters on which the lawyer has opined. In very small transactions, hardly anyone asks for a legal opinion. In large transactions, you firstly want to weight of a heavy hitting firm behind the opinion and also deep pockets to access, if things should go wrong. Can you see Goldman Sachs NY hiring an Indian solicitor and sole practioner resident in Bombay to issue a NY law opinion?

So while a foreign qualification simpliciter may give an individual the right to practice, it is possibly not right for the individual to practice in such a manner. And also, likely not practical.