LPO companies practising law pose technical problem: Jyoti Sagar

Jyoti Sagar, the founding partner of J. Sagar Associates said that technically legal process outsourcing presented a problem in the context of the judgment of the Bombay High Court on foreign law firms and the observations on the practice of law under the Advocates Act. "LPOs do practice law, maybe the US law or the law of any particular other country. It is practice of law in a way if they are drafting documents and analysing documents", he said. Previously, Lalit Bhasin, the President of the Society of Indian Law Firms had said that the activity of legal process outsourcing could be legitimately conducted within the four corners of the Advocates Act. He said that a problem would arise if LPOs, formed as companies, engage in the practice of law.

Lalit Bhasin and Jyoti Sagar were part of a panel that discussed the implications of the judgment of the Bombay High Court at the 6th Annual Asian ITECHLAW Conference, held at Hotel Taj West End in Bangalore on the 4th and 5th of February, 2010. The discussion which was moderated by Nikhil Chandra from Rainmaker, also featured Shweta Bharti from Hammurabi & Solomon.

Lait Bhasin also said that if such work were to be handled by law firms, it would not present a problem.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• LPO
• legal process outsourcing
• law firms
• Lawyers Collective
• Bombay High Court
• SILF
• Bhasin
• Jyoti Sagar
• Advocates Act

[Achintyanath]

What an old-school protectionist approach. People like this are the reason why we do not have a robust body of specialist legal professionals from other professions like Engineering and Medicine, unlike in the West.

[mathurite]

Funny as these old fogeys are! I am both amused and shocked when Lalit observes that Indian lawyers give the best results on issues on foreign law, and implying that there is no need for foreign law firms to come to India. The poor fellow did not know that TATA, when they acquired Land Rover-Jaguar, and the Indian government have spent millions of dollars on foreign law advise by law firms in the US and Europe.

Mohit