Clifford Chance, the world's largest law firm, announced an alliance with leading Indian counterpart AZB on Wednesday as global legal practices try to gain access to the country's burgeoning cross-border market.
David Childs, Clifford Chance global managing partner, said the firm had signed a "best friends" relationship by which the UK-based firm would refer work in India to AZB. The Indian firm would do the same with international work.
The British government has been among the leaders of an aggressive push to open restricted legal markets such as China, Brazil and India. The latter's ban on foreign lawyers means it is viewed by top London-based international firms as a final frontier.
Mr Childs said Clifford Chance would consider deepening the relationship further if India were to relax restrictions that at present prohibit foreign lawyers from practising.
"We would obviously like [in] time to form a closer association," said Mr Childs. "We need to wait and [to] see what form liberalisation takes here and what the timetable is. We would hope - and we do expect - that the rules will liberalise."
India's restrictions on foreign law firms were less of an issue a decade ago when the nation's companies tended to be more domestically focused.
AZB has about 200 lawyers working in India. Clifford Chance has 195 lawyers in its Indian group in offices overseas. They deal with non-Indian law involving transactions or corporate issues related to the country.
The relationship is non-exclusive. Each side retains the option to refer work to another firm if a client requests it.
Mr Childs said he had yet to see any progress on liberalisation. The UK has pressed India to open up. Indian lawyers are permitted to practise and to open offices Britain. "It's up in the air," he said.
The Indian legal fraternity argues that before any opening the government ought to lift restrictions on domestic operators to allow them to prepare for competition. It ought also to remove rules to limit the number of partners allowed in a firm and curbs on advertising.
RSG Consulting, a London-based consultancy, said in a report last year an overwhelming majority of the large Indian law firm clients it interviewed wanted liberalisation of the profession.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
