Seeking A Comment On Legal Reform

Dear All,

As you may be aware, the Department of Commerce has been pursuing reforms in the legal services sector with the Department of Legal Affairs. Reforms. In this regard, the Department had assigned a study on the regulatory framework of legal services in India to the Centre for Trade and Investment Law (CTIL), IIFT. The draft report submitted by the CTIL ( enclosed) covers the following topics : –

(i) Regulatory Model for Non-Litigious Services: The report provides an in-depth analysis relating to the flaws and gap in regulation of in-house counsels, law firm lawyers and legal process outsourcing firms. Regulatory regimes in the United States of America, United Kingdom, Singapore and Malaysia have been examined in order to assess how these jurisdictions have addressed the regulatory gaps and flaws. Broad contours of a regulatory regime have been proposed for non-litigious services.

(ii) Action plan for making India an arbitration hub: The report seeks to build upon the recommendations put forth by the Srikrishna Committee and provides the status as against each of these recommendations. It concludes that the legislative measures suggested by the Committee need to be addressed at the earliest and seeks to resolve the issues through proposed amendments in the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 and the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2018.

(iii) Action plan for entry of foreign law firms: On 24 June 2016, the Bar Council of India released the draft Registration and Regulation of Foreign Lawyers in India, 2016. The report objectively analyses the proposals for regulatory models put forth by the society for Indian Law firms, the Indian National Bar Association and the Indian Corporate Counsel Association in response to these regulations. The draft report seeks to recognize the key pillars of the regulatory regime which will govern the entry of foreign law firms in India and opines on the suitability of the existing proposals with respect to these issues.

It is requested to kindly furnish your comments/suggestions/views on the draft report latest by 30.01.2019.

Naresh Sabharawal, Jeevesh Sabharawal