Mint column: Lawyers should be the noble and independent servants of justice, the courts and their clients. Finding lawyers who do all three of those things is the exception, rather than the rule.

For starters, Indian clients have very little, if any, recourse against lawyers who give them bad, negligent or harmful legal advice, as explained in today’s Mint feature. But that is just the tip of lawyers’ legal immunity iceberg.

Breaking: Fees earned by lawyers in courts or tribunals will not be subject to service tax under the Union Budget, which expanded the overall scope of service tax to everything except for a few exceptions.

Dear corporate law firm lawyers, dear advocates. Have you ever struggled to explain to your non-lawyer friends what you do? Does your mum know what you do? Seniors, clients and spouses do not seem to have much of an insight either?

We bump into each other in the long corridor adjacent to Court 5. It’s cruel, I know I shouldn’t be asking but then I do anyway. “Got any briefs yet?” I see the furrows on his forehead. Anxiety. I know what it feels like. Only two minutes earlier, after some small talk he had confided in me: “I’m independent these days.”

Breaking: The Union Budget has widened contentious law firm service tax to apply to court-based, tribunal and arbitration advice by lawyers and has been further expanded to include advice by law firms to individuals too.

Chennai advocates demonstrated outside the Madras High Court yesterday, demanding a raising of the advocates’ welfare fund amount from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 lakh, reported the PTI , adding that the advocates also demanded for Tamil to be made an accepted court language in High Court proceedings. Earlier...

Bar Council of India chairman Suraj Narain Prasad Sinha has responded to Legally India readers’ comments to our interview with him of two weeks ago. He argues that top law students are depriving the bar and bench of talent by joining law firms and pleads that all lawyers should aim high in their careers.