The Narendra Modi-led government has initiated talks with the Bar Council of India (BCI) to open up the Indian legal market to foreign law firms, reported the PTI , because it would assist in the government’s policy to increase the “ease of doing business” in India. BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra s...

Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) president Lalit Bhasin told the Business Standard that a plan of phased entry into India of foreign law firms should begin in 2015, subject to a number of conditions.

Narayan Iyer, who had left Linklaters Singapore in 2009 to join the magic circle firm’s best friend Talwar Thakore & Associates, has been appointed as head of the India practice.

Lalit Bhasin has written in a Business Standard column that he was now in favour of allowing the phased entry of foreign law firms…

An unnamed “government official” told the Hindu Businessline that the commerce ministry was putting “finishing touches” to a proposal to liberalise transactional legal services and international arbitration. “The idea was discussed in detail at the 12 November National Services Conclave,” said the o...

AZB & Partners has hired the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) former assistant director Fadi Metanios as a senior consultant in its Delhi competition team.

Penningtons Manches partner and India co-head Saionton Basu has joined US firm Duane Morris’ London corporate practice, according to a press release from the firm . The NLSIU Bangalore graduate had joined Penningtons, as it was then called, in 2011 from Platinum Partners in Delhi , where he had retu...

Supreme Court advocate, Lok Sabha member and BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi, speaking at a legal conference yesterday, said that she would ‘extend protection’ for Indian lawyers against the entry of foreign law firms to India.

DLA Piper India group partner and NLSIU Bangalore grad Biswajit Chatterjee has joined US firm Squire Patton Boggs.

UK law minister Shailesh Vara, who is of Gujarati origins, has lobbied for the entry of foreign law firms to practise non-Indian transactional law here during his ongoing visit to India. Vara said at a press conference in Ahmedabad, according to the PTI : “I had met Indian Law Minister Ravi Shankar ...

Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) deputy registrar Vivekananda Neelakantan joins top Singapore firm Allen & Gledhill.

Clyde & Co Dubai aviation partner Sidanth Rajagopal joined the London office of Kaye Scholer with the same designation, reported Bar & Bench . The ILS Pune alumnus, who had also briefly worked at Clyde’s Indian best friend firm Clasis Law, told B&B : “This was a fantastic opportunity ...

The Finance Ministry’s 2013-14 economic survey reported that the average growth of the legal industry between 2005-06 and 2012-13 remained at 8.2 per cent per annum – the same average figure found in last year’s economic survey between 2005 and 2012 . However, the report did not specify the actual g...

UK-headquartered magic circle firm Allen & Overy, which used to have a best friend relationship with Trilegal but gave up because it saw no prospect of the Indian legal market opening up, is set to open an office in Myanmar, which recently liberalised its economy, following Baker & McKenzi...

Foreign lawyers should be allowed to work on arbitrations in India to make domestic arbitration more attractive and to unburden the courts said Supreme Court justices SS Nijjar and PC Ghose and retired judge AK Ganguly, reported Kolkata paper The Telegraph . Nijjar said at the seminar by the Indian ...

Magic circle firm Clifford Chance has promoted four women and three men to its partnership in London after Linklaters did the same earlier this month for the first time. Women still make up a minority of partners in UK firms but some firms, such as Herbert Smith Freehills, have recently introduced a...

Aditi Mathur has been promoted to the partnership of Singaporean firm Shook Lin & Bok.

Twenty months after the Supreme Court (SC) had given 10 weeks to complete serving notices on foreign law firms, the Bar Council of India (BCI) appeal against foreign law firms practicing in India, remains stuck at the service stage.

Allen & Overy (A&O) has promoted India-England-New-York qualified counsel Amit Singh to partnership in the Hong Kong capital markets practice.

Naik Naik & Co and London-international firm Lawrence Graham (formerly known as LG) have entered into a preferred referral relationship.