School of Law

Hamdard Institute of Legal Studies and Research

Jamia Hamdard University

CLINICAL LEGAL COURSE

Code:-705

[Link](HONS.)/SEM VII

SESSION- 2020-2025

Enroll No.- 2020-342-090

TOPIC:- IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION ON THE GROWTH OF LEGAL PROFESSION

IN INDIA : AN ANALYSIS THROUGH PRECEDENT AND STATUTES

SUBMITTED TO:- Mr. YASIN SIR

SUBMITTED BY:- SAMI SAHIL

ABSTRACT

Globalization had an impact on almost all the prevailing professions in the country and its history with
legal profession has been more or less of a dynamic and a positive one. The legal profession was regarded
as a dynamic field of work even before the concept of globalization but after the forthcoming changes
that globalization brought with itself the dynamics of the legal profession shifted towards a more
connected and interlocked profession. This analysis might not be the Alpha to Omega of the impact of
globalization on the Indian legal profession, but it will focus on the following questions- what was the
impact of globalization on Indian legal professionals? What are the views of the Indian Judiciary on India
lawyers working with foreign firms? This paper will also discuss the amount of liberty available to foreign
legal firms to enter India.

INTRODUCTION

A profound revolution is taking place in the legal profession due to globalization. Globalization involves a
lot of participation, and many countries are involved in the legal profession and also there is excess to the
domestic economies. Globalization has brought about a lot of changes in the teaching of law students,
trainingof the advocates, the professional skills of the advocates are honed to meet the challenges which
have been put forward by globalization and the universalization of law. The standard of the legal industry
has increased and it requires the lawyers to be capable of handling all kinds of cases. There are three
prime movers which cause globalization, they are political globalization, economic globalization and
technological globalization. Globalization brings together the people in the world to come closer and give
rise to a new system of global governance and also a global civil society. Globalization has an effect on
the legal profession which has increased the pace and complexity of law practice. Globalization has
increased the mobility of lawyers with proper legal skills and experience. In major financial centres of the
world, lawyers are practicing in offshore law firms. Within India, domestic lawyers can practice in the law
firms here and litigation lawyers can work in arbitration or non-litigation work

WHAT IS GLOBALISATION?

The term “Globalisation” refers to the rising interdependence of the world’s economies,
cultures, and populations, as a result of cross-border trade in commodities and services,
technology, and investment, people, and information flows. Over many years, countries have
formed economic alliances to enable these flows. Globalization’s far-reaching consequences
are complicated and politically fraught. Globalization, like other great technological
developments, benefits society as a whole while damaging specific sections. Understanding
the relative costs and benefits can pave the road for problems to be solved while the larger
payoffs are maintained. It entails the emergence of networks and hobbies that reconfigure
social, financial, and geographical constraints. Globalization tries to build links in such a way
that activities in India can be determined by looking at activities that are taking place far
away.

Globalization has led to the acceleration of actions and exchanges (of people, products, and
services, capital, technology, and cultural practises) throughout the globe. One of the
consequences of globalisation is that it encourages and will continue to encourage contacts
between diverse locations and populations around the world.

GLOBALIZATION ON THE JUSTICE SYSTEM

The delivery of justice to nations around the world has been affected by globalization. It
spreads the legal developments going on in the world for example the development of laws,
concepts relating to human rights, intellectual property rights, competition laws, media laws,
etc. the economies of the nation are linked due to globalization which has neither
geographical nor territorial connections. India has opened up its economy by removing the
controls during the Economic Liberalization due to which the Indian market faces
competition from within and outside the country. So, there was the need to have strong
legislation which could dispense justice in commercial matters and led to the Competition
Act, 2002. The Competition Commission of India is a quasi-judicial body that was
established for enforcing provisions of the competition act. The laws developed relating to
Human Rights around the world provides an insight as to how globalization has made its
impact on delivering the justice-related to Human Right laws. There are various conventions
and conferences taking place internationally to deal with human rights violations and also to
improve the conditions of human beings and their dignity around the world.

IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION ON INDIAN LAWYERS

One of the best revolutions brought by globalization was that finally foreign inventors and
companies were allowed to export their state-of-the-art technology to India. Advancement in
technology made it possible for countries around the world to connect with each other in a
swift manner which in turn let our legal professionals to communicate with professionals
from outside India. Earlier it was telephones, telegraphs, fax, pager etc. that were used by our
esteemed professionals to communicate with professionals from outside India but now the
internet is used to communicate. This allowed domestic law firms to partner up with foreign
firms on certain cases and also provided an opportunity to sole practitioners to connect and
work with firms outside the domain of India. Young law graduates also benefited from this as
from the start of their career’s they had the golden opportunity of training themselves to work
both onshore and offshore projects with a clientele available to them from all around the
world.2 Changes brought forward by Globalization gradually changed the dynamic of the
composition of graduates seeking jobs in the corporate sector more than entering the
litigation field, due the vastly prevalent but some-what wrong belief that there is more of an
opportunity to grow as a professional in cooperate sector as compared to a career in litigation
due to the impact globalization had on that sector. Litigation is lagging behind in the race
because still the Indian courts and the law makers are not allowing foreign litigators to work
in Indian courts in full capacity.

FREEDOM OF ENTRY TO FOREIGN FIRMS

The learned senior advocate C.U. Singh once said that “the fly in and fly- out” predicament
is solved by The Advocates Act, 1961 which provides that there shall be only one class of
persons who can practice law in India, i.e., advocates admitted on the state bar council rolls”
If we go by this statement it leaves no option for foreign legal giants any option to join ranks
with the Indian legal firms and compete with them on an Indian domestic standpoint. In the
case of AK Balaji vs Government of India (21 February 2012), which was first heard by the
Madras High Court in 2012. In this case the plaintiff filled the case in High Court through
Article 226 under the writ of mandamus stating that the Government Officials and Bar
Council of India must look into some of the aforementioned foreign legal firms and foreign
solo practitioners who are working in the Indian legal scenario even though they are not
allowed to do so under The Advocates Act, 1961. The Madras High court held that the
foreign legal firms can come to India on “a fly- in and fly- out” basis and in turn can provide
advisory services to their clients based in India. Also, it was said that there is no provision
which bars foreign firms to work in India regarding any international arbitration proceedings
or negotiations3 . Now the review appeal was filled in the Supreme Court by the Bar Council
of India against the judgment of the Madras High Court. In this landmark judgment given by
the Supreme Court on 13th March 2018 gave a very definitive definition of the phrase
“practice of profession” includes both litigation and non- litigation work (Legal opinions and
advisory services). This definition expands the horizon of what is considered as practice
under the act. The Supreme Court further upheld the judgment of the Madras High Court
stating that foreign legal professionals can visit India on a “fly- in and fly- out” basis which
will allow them to visit temporarily or from casual standpoint. Now the responsibility of what
should be considered as casual or temporary will be decided by the courts on seeing the facts
of the case. Further the Supreme Court also ruled that the provisions that foreign
professionals must abide by visiting India must be formulated by the Government of India
and the Bar council of India. 4 The interpretation of the Advocates Act, 1961 was also
widened by this landmark judgment as in a landmark moment in its own way, it was clarified
for the very first time by the courts that the Advocates Act, 1961 is also applicable to
corporate firms and individual firms in addition to an individual legal professional. By saying
this Supreme Court has increased the scope of applicability of the Advocates Act, 1961 as
now the rules of decorum which are expected form a legal professional will now be expected
and levied on these body corporates as well. Foreign Firms were also granted relief to operate
under matters related to international arbitration commission and the before mentioned
matters shall be liable to be admitted under section 32 and section 34 of the act. A four-
phased plan was proposed by them which would allow foreign firms to make offices in India
the primary stage of which will be to permit Indian firms to have brochures and websites, at
second stage of that point foreign law offices ought to be permitted to prompt and help Indian
clientele on foreign law. In the third stage, they should be permitted to give cooperative
guidance to Indian Firms and finally in the last stage they should be allowed to practice law
in the country, barring some exceptions of foreign big players like PWC, EY and Deloitte etc.
In their opinion this will be beneficial for the Bar, as it will elevate the current state of
competition in the bar. If the Government of India and Bar Council of India decide to allow
foreign firms to practice in India then the parliament of India must amend the Advocates Act,
1961 and make the language of the act better suited to their entry.

Conclusion

Lawyers as a professional must not criticize change of circumstances because being a

professional is all about learning with new opportunities and changes that come their way as
the legal profession is a ‘dynamic profession’. India might not be among the first countries to
allow the globalization wave inwards, but when the time was right the Government of India
allowed the globalization wave to hit India and I must say that most of the professionals
working in our country benefited from the same. Now Indian legal professionals have the
opportunity to grow to unimaginable heights which was seen as not possible before the
1990’s. Now still the question remains that whether inculcation of foreign firms in Indian
legal system should be allowed or not, if yes, then they will have to be allowed to file
‘vakalatnama’ in courts which will allow them to appear before the Indian courts in full
capacity. To achieve this the Courts and the Indian Government will have to change the
language of the Advocates Act, 1961 like removing words like ‘have to be an Indian Citizen’
to be eligible to be a legal professional in India. We should positively all expect that the
fundamental ideal of the legal profession, as one of devoted assistance past unadulterated
monetary and not favoring self-interest. Be that as it may, whether this philosophy survives or
not is not only up to the lawyers of today but also on the Courts and the Indian Government
when they allow foreign firms to contest in the Indian Legal System. This step of inculcating
foreign firms in our legal system must be taken with due diligence by the Indian Government
keeping the state of our homegrown Indian lawyers in their mind.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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