Birmingham Law Society's legal missionaries return from India
Tuesday, 16th December 2008
Among the group were Caroline Coates, president of Birmingham Law Society, Steve Cunane, regional international trade adviser for UKTI and Carla Hull, chair of the BLS International Committee.
As part of the trip they met leading lawyers from across India at a networking event held at the home of Ian Gibbons, deputy director of UKTI, New Delhi.
The delegation also visited the High Court, Supreme Court and President's House to gain a first hand insight into the Indian legal system.
Carla Hull said the general consensus amongst the visiting lawyers was that working together as part of a global legal community was imperative for the future.
''When India's legal services market does open up, the future for UK lawyers will lie in pursuing cross border transactional work rather than contentious litigation work in the domestic courts of India,''she said.
Birmingham Law Society hosted a meeting at the India International Centre to discuss the liberalisation of India�s legal services with the Bar Council. Guests included Dr Justice Lakshmanan, chairman of the Law Commission of India, Rajendra Raghuvanshi, the solicitor general of India and Suraj Sinha, chairman of the Bar Council of India.
Mr Sinha said change was inevitable in a world that was bringing the legal community closer together.
He said: ''Liberalisation has been the aim of the government since 1961 and the Bar Council is not against foreign lawyers practising in India, however it faces the difficult task of consulting 19 different State Bar Councils to win over their confidence.
''A conference is currently being arranged to take place in early 2009 to debate this very important issue.
''The liberalisation of legal services in India will no doubt happen in the future but we must ensure that there is proper regulation in both jurisdictions.''
