Row over issue of publicising legal services

Since BCI cannot take any action against a company or firm, it is doing spadework to take action against law graduates and advocates working for LPOs. BCI claims nobody can practise law in Indian territory except ‘Advocates’ as per Section 29 of Advocates Act 1961.

BCI chairman Jaganath Patnaik is taking up this matter in the council’s general house meeting (GHM) next month. The Council’s stand is clear: practising law includes representing a client in court, presenting or submitting documents in court, processing a legal document and providing legal consultancy.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Patnaik said, “Even for providing legal consultancy to foreign clients, enrolment with Bar Council is required. We’ll take up the matter of advertisement and hosting websites by LPOs in our GHM. We can take action against individual professionals working for such firms.”

HTMT global chief financial officer Yagnesh Sanghrajka doesn’t agree. “We don’t come under the purview of BCI,” he said. “We will hire Indian law graduates. But those law graduates needn’t follow the BCI professional code. We will make sure no graduate is enrolled with BCI. Those who are, will be asked to cancel their enrolment before joining our LPO.”

On the ban on publicising legal services, Sanghrajka said, “We would advertise and put our website on Internet. Only advocates enrolled with BCI cannot do that. But a company like ours can.”

Last week HTMT and UK-based Centric joined hands with a leading Indian law firm, Fox Mandal Little, to establish an LPO in India to provide legal outsourcing services to MNCs and other international law firms. The new company will be called Centric LPO and would be a subsidiary of HTMT. This partnership has potential to grow to a $40 million business in next three years company officials say.

LEGAL SPEAK

• What IS LPO? Legal process outsourcing includes processing legal documents for compliance with various regulators including sale deeds, affidavits, wills and subrogation, legal counselling, legal implications of tax planning and other legal consulting services.

• How Big is it? An Assocham study says the global legal service trade market is worth $20 billion. India’s share is 2 per cent or about Rs 1,800 crore. More than 200 top US companies are looking for offshore locations like India to help them save about 30-70 per cent of legal costs.

• IS IT ILLEGAL? “No” according to companies setting up LPOs, an who claim only advocates practicing in court come under Bar Council of India (BCI) rules. “Yes”, says BCI

• ON DEBATE. Section 33 of Advocates Act, 1961 that states: “…no person shall…be entitled to practice in any court or before any authority or person unless he is enrolled as an advocate under this Act.”