"Training of lawyers will improve with the entry of foreign law firms."

Senior Advocate Harish Salve said that the quality of lawyering in India suffered at many levels. "One is the rush of numbers. There is nothing you can do about it. Second is the quality of legal education. You have all sorts of law colleges and law universities. Unless you have the kind of power that is there with the Medical Council... Unless you treat law as a serious profession and create strict regulatory systems, the quality of legal education is not going to improve."

Mr. Salve also felt that the training of lawyers would improve with the entry of foreign firms. "If foreign firms come in, it'll be their name but it will be Indian lawyers who will be working... they will learn the work and the culture of those firms which have worked for years in different systems. They will bring quality to India... Yet we want to block them because the monopoly of a few big law firms may be disturbed."

On court craft and reading the bench, Mr. Salve had this to say: "One has to understand that when you are arguing a case, you are putting forth an idea to human beings... So you have to be sensitive at every point of time of what they are hearing, not what you are saying. You have to understand what they are thinking and bring them around to your point of view...Never be dogmatic because if you are, then you lose connectivity with the person hearing you...That's what I leant from Mr. Palkhivala."

Mr. Salve also feels that technology can make legal research, organisation and practice fast, smooth and easy. "If we can use technology to speed up legal research, to organise our legal work, to assist judges in taking decisions, it all works better... We save paper. We save forests."

Apart from practicing law, Mr. Salve is passionate about his dogs. He has a pair of rottweilers who he says are "beautiful animals... though they may be scary for others." His other passions include jazz and spending summers in London. "My passion is music and I am a total family person, a very private person... Summers I like to spend in London as I have a lot of friends there, so summers in London are becoming a passion."

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Harish Salve
• Whole Truth
• legal education
• professional regulation
• liberalisation
• foreign law firms
• jazz
• dogs