“Bar associations are facing a very serious identity crisis and good lawyers are unfortunately not willing to participate in the democratic process in bar associations. As a result, most bar association have been hijacked by those lawyers who don’t have a serious stake in the institution or those who have a personal agenda, but not the welfare of the bar.”

Amid all the legal troubles she and her husband Javed Anand face, human rights activist Teesta Setalvad is unfazed and believes that the good will finally triumph. Accusing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of political vendetta, Setalvad took strong exception to the CBI calling her a “natio...

V Arun Roy, a 2002-batch NLSIU Bangalore graduate and Tamil Nadu Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, has taken charge of the Tamil Nadu-based National Law School Srirangam as acting vice chancellor (VC).

As managing partner Berjis Desai’s exit nears and after the departure of senior Mumbai rainmaker Akshay Chudasama, concerns mount over the firm holding on to its democratic structure and how it can remain competitive for the next 25 years.

And if you’ve read the article in Mint already, click through for additional interesting transcripts from the interview.

Shroff has ambitious plans for life and work after the bitter family feud that broke up India’s largest law firm, reports Kian Ganz in today’s Mint.

Cyril Shroff, who will launch his take on Amarchand Mangaldas today with new partnership Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, has confirmed the lateral hires made so far and partner moves to Delhi, while revealing that he planned to spend around half his time in Delhi in the first 12 months of the office.

“I’m not nervous about it,” claims Jyoti Sagar about surrendering the last 7-odd per cent of equity he holds in the firm he started more than 20 years ago. “It is something I have known for 10 years, not something sudden.”

“Our model is well–known but people have carried the impression that it’s just a model but not for real. But people are trying to figure out what’s going on [now that I’m actually retiring].”

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), 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.

“As far as Ashurst is concerned, I’m very happy with where we are today,” says the firm’s India group head Richard Gubbins. For a lawyer who is just about to shut down an office he has helped build and defend for 15 years, he does not sound upset at all. Is he just putting a brave face on things or is the firm secretly glad to be rid of what had turned into an expensive millstone?

He has been called a “living legend of law” by the International Bar Association and is nothing less than the father of modern Indian legal education. But even at age 75, Padmashree Professor Dr. Neelakanta Ramakrishna Madhava Menon is not slowing down.

We have talked to him about his vision and hopes for the future of legal education and of India.

He was the driving force behind the recent historic judgement that effectively decriminalised homosexuality by ‘reading down’ section 377 last month. But Anand Grover’s battle has been far older than just that case, starting 20 years ago with a series of painful setbacks, death and a growing obsession.

Legally India caught up with Bar Council of India chairman Suraj Narain Prasad Sinha last week. We asked him about legal education, Australian racism and why allowing foreign law firms to practice here is a bad idea.