India Business Law Journal – February 2013

According to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a judge of the US Supreme Court, it is. In a recent interview Justice Sotomayor – who is the court’s first Hispanic judge – also said: “To me, lawyering is the height of service and being involved in this profession is a gift. Any lawyer who is unhappy should go back to square one and start again.”

Justice Sotomayor’s words have prompted discussion in the US, where happiness may be in short supply among many in the profession, especially young lawyers trying to get their foot in the door in difficult economic times, while also struggling under the burden of student debts.

But what of the legal profession in India? How many of the country’s almost 1.3 million lawyers agree with Justice Sotomayor that being involved in the profession is a gift?

While there may be no real method of studying how happy India’s lawyers are, we can certainly ask their clients – in India and abroad – how happy they are with lawyers’ skills, expertise and achievements.

India Business Law Journal has conducted this exercise every year since 2008. The results form the basis of our annual Indian Law Firm Awards, which have become a recognized benchmark of excellence in the country’s legal profession.

This month we are pleased to present the results of our 2012 awards (Intelligence report). The results point to the continuing dominance of six big law firms – Amarchand Mangaldas, AZB & Partners, J Sagar Associates, Khaitan & Co, Luthra & Luthra and Trilegal – but also offer some intriguing insights into which of the country’s smaller firms are snapping at their heels. For how long can the big six cling to their top spots? Watch this space in future years to find out. For these are challenging times in which the increasing complexity of the legal environment, the recent slowdown in the rate of economic growth and heightened competition from smaller firms are conspiring to test the resilience of India’s “magic circle” firms like never before.

For now at least, the partners and associates at the big six firms – as well as those at all of the other law firms that are winners in this year’s awards – have every reason to be cheerful. Whether the same will be true next year is anybody’s guess.

While lawyers in private practice jostle for position and struggle to stay ahead of the pack, their in-house counsel colleagues face a different set of challenges. For some in-house professionals, these challenges include ensuring compliance with the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the UK Bribery Act. But now, with India rumoured to be considering introducing its own “failure to prevent bribery” offence, the issue could be set to top the agendas of just about every in-house lawyer in the country.

This month’s Cover story reveals that preparing for such an eventuality will require careful planning. Our coverage includes guidance on how to put in place adequate measures to prevent bribery. It also provides in-depth analysis of what a best-practice anti-corruption policy should look like. We’re confident that it will offer valuable and timely assistance to in-house counsel as they begin to plan ahead.

As every lawyer will know, getting the words right – be it when drafting an agreement or arguing in court – is half the battle won. As we highlight in this month’s Spotlight (The write stuff) this can be one of the most challenging aspects of legal practice. Yet as lawyers strive to keep abreast of constantly evolving rules and regulations, there is an ever-present temptation to give less importance to perfecting the art of legal writing and drafting. This can be unwise and our coverage provides ample food for thought on correcting this dangerous trend.

In this month’s What’s the deal? we examine a recent initial public offering (IPO) in which compiling the disclosure statements in the company’s prospectus required the lawyers involved to be masters of legal drafting. The Bharti Infratel listing grabbed the headlines for being India’s largest IPO since Coal India’s IPO in October 2010. Our behind-the-headlines report reveals some of the legal and regulatory challenges that were encountered along the way – and most importantly, how they were overcome.

The challenges associated with pulling off a successful IPO pale into insignificance when compared to the myriad challenges that face women in India. While the world’s attention has been focused on the appalling rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus, India has begun a process of collective soul searching as it contemplates the changes that are needed to its society, public institutions, law enforcement agencies and legal system in order to ensure that women are adequately protected.

Writing in this month’s Vantage Point, Shwetasree Majumdar, a Delhi-based intellectual property lawyer, tells of how she took a month out from her day job to advise a committee headed by Justice JS Verma on updating India’s rape laws. Majumdar writes that she thought of the assignment as “a big pro bono project with an inbuilt sense of instant gratification” but concedes that she “didn’t quite bargain for how physically, mentally and emotionally draining the assignment was going to be; how deeply moving on one hand and how immensely anger-inducing on the other”.

Clearly, her month devoted to their cause has been a gift to the women of India.