Abstract:
ABSTRACT
This paper is an endeavour to understand the implications of liberalizing the legal sector
pursuant to committing the same under the Schedule of the GATS as a consequence of the
domestic regulations that are being imposed on the entry to foreign lawyers in India. The
validity or rather the severity of the restriction was reiterated by judicial pronouncement in
Lawyers' Collective. This paper would attempt to critically analyse the part domestic
regulations, in the Advocates Act and Bar Council Rules, play in opposing liberalization by
hampering the expansion and competence ofIndian lawyers in sustaining and rising over or
competing with the foreign competition. In this context, certain suggestions are put across
and the possible effects of novel developments are envisioned. Various countries have opened
up their legal sector to the wide arms of liberalization and they have benefitted regardless of
the apprehension that liberalization would result in the stomping over oflocal firms; India
need to emulate or take points from the examples of Singapore and China. The primary
constraint on the free movement of foreign lawyers is the domestic regulations prescribing
citizenship and reciprocity for enrolment as a lawyer, which the Bar Council ought to remove
and consider the introduction of partial licensing for foreign legal consultant to allow
practice in limited areas of law such as international and home country law.
