Indian Court doesn’t fall for lawyers claim that they arent practising law
Comments (0) A fascinating little case was decided by the Indian High Court a few weeks ago in relation to foreign law firms establishing offices in India. The issue at the centre of the case was whether a particular clause of the Advocates Act, the relevant legislation regulating the Indian legal profession, requiring persons “practising the profession of law” to be enrolled with a State Bar council, applied to non-litigous legal work. Accordingly, the criticial issue was whether person’s engaged in non-litigous work practice the profession of law. The foreign firms that were the respondents to the writ argued that they were not. How often do you get lawyers to say they are practising law? Did the law firms fees reflect the fact that they werent “practising law”? I very much doubt it.
I should note that the argument by the respondents in the case was a techical argument based on the terms of the Act so its not really as incredible as it may seem at first glance. However, I still enjoy the image of these lawyers then explaining to their clients that they do not practise law in India – very much doubt that would ever happen.
I would think that the argument would give a lot of joy to the litigation lawyers out there who generally do not regard corporate and tax lawyers as true lawyers 
Interestingly, there does not appear to have been the usual consideration in respect of whether foreign law firms are able to practice foreign law in India. This is the basis on which foreign law firms practice in China – strictly speaking they are not permitted to practice Chinese law. I am not sure why this was not mentioned. I assume if this submission had been made by the respondents it would have been dealt with in the judgment. I also assume that if the submission was not made it was for good reason.
I have uploaded a copy of the judgment here:
