For foreign lawyers eyeing India, the anticipated timing of that market’s opening to international competition has been remarkably consistent. It has been two years away—for the past ten years.
The beginning of 2009 had offered a glimmer of hope, with Indian law and justice minister Hansraj Bhardwaj calling for Indian lawyers to embrace liberalization, and the government circulating draft rules to allow foreign firms to open offices in India. But the months since have seen little progress, and sectors of the Indian profession have vigorously restated their opposition to foreign firms entering the market. In an April opinion piece for the Indian newspaper The Economic Times, Lalit Bhasin, the president of the Society of Indian Law Firms, claimed that British law firms in particular were seeking to enter India to make up for “negative growth” in their home market. “The problem is that, in India, [the] legal profession is not a business, and it is not up for sale,” Bhasin wrote.
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