Foreign Lawyers & Foreign Law Firms To Be Allowed in India
Foreign Lawyers & Foreign Law Firms
Recently , the Bar Council of India (BCI) has drafted rules to allow foreign lawyers and law firms to practice in India. Whereas, Ministry of Law and Justice has also called for meeting on 5th July with 4 ministries and 3 organisation including SILF.
The new draft rules propose the following :
i) The Registration with BCI by paying registration fees of $ 25,000 for individual lawyers and $50,000 for law firms.
ii) The Registrations will be valid for 5 years.
iii) The Registration will be renewed by payment of $ 10,000 for individual lawyers and $20,000 for law firms
iv) It will allow foreign lawyers and law firms to set up their offices in India.
v) They can practice in non-Indian law in India i.e transactional legal work, international arbitrations with seat in India etc.
vi) They can open up law offices in India and hire local advocates.
vii) They can enter into partnership with Indian lawyers and law firms.
viii) They can work as an advocate for any Indian law firm.
ix) The foreign lawyers will have to file a declaration on oath that they shall not “practice Indian law in any form or before any court of Law, Tribunal, Board or any other Authority legally entitled to record evidence on oath”.
x) The registration will require an additional deposit of a security guarantee i.e $15,000 for an individual lawyer and $40,000 for a law firm. This will be returnable on voluntary termination or expiry of registration.
xi) The registration will firstly require a certificate from concerned Ministry of Indian Government and a certificate of practice from foreign bar council and/or equivalent bodies.
One can expect that the final BCI rules will have further changes.To allow foreign lawyers and law firm practice in India ,suitable changes shall be also made in Advocates Act,1961. It should be also noted that the foreign lawyers and foreign law firms shall have to also observe the discipline and comply with the ethical obligations which are mandated by BCI.
Finally, it is one of the effort to encourage ease of doing business in India.
As per the Rules of the Bar Council of India, advocates are not permitted to advertise. By clicking on the “I agree” button, the user agrees and acknowledges that:
This website simply explains as to how litigation is handled, the advice is rendered for various practice areas of the firm and how our law firm i.e. AMLEGALS does it differently;
That the user has visited the website of our law firm to know about AMLEGALS, White Papers, Legal articles, Legal updates & Case laws on various areas of law that are published by the Firm from time to time.
AMLEGALS assumes no liability for the interpretation and/or use of the information contained on this website, nor does it offer a warranty of any kind, either express or implied.
AMLEGALS is not liable for any consequences of any action taken by the user by relying on material/information provided on this website. Nothing mentioned on the website should be construed as legal advice. For more information on our working and to get in touch with the AMLEGALS team, please feel free to get in touch on info@amlegals.com.
Leave a Reply