Another key issue that was highlighted was that the existing legal talent in the country was being drained by large overseas firms such as Clifford Chance, etc. the so called “Brain Drain”. Our view in this regard is that, this is totally misconceived, as the entry of foreign law firms would among other benefits result in better pay for the entry level lawyers, exposure to international best practices, exposure to cross border transactions and a wealth of opportunities for the 80,000 lawyers graduating from Indian law schools every year. An open legal services market would make recruitment a competitive process and law firms would be forced to provide opportunities to lawyers from all parts of the country. Often, only the students who can afford an expensive education in private law schools are afforded the opportunity to work with the larger firms. It is  a matter of immense concern that although 80,000 lawyers graduate from various law schools across India every year, the number of corporate lawyers in law firms around the country number less than 1500 even with a liberal estimate. The theory of “brain drain” is the result of the unwillingness of domestic firms to invest in competitive recruitment or imparting training or providing competitive salaries to the large pool of lawyers in the country. Every Indian industry had similar concerns when the economy started opening up. If one examines why law firms in the US and UK, until recently, used to recruit heavily from countries like Australia and New Zealand, it would be evident that this was due to the lack of supply of lawyers in their country and also to attract better talents at lesser pay. Moreover, in countries like Australia and New Zealand the lawyers not only spoke in English but were also trained in a common law system. Most of the talented law graduated from these countries used to look for better pastures for training as well as better pay packages and as a result moved to US and UK law firms. These countries lost a lot of their better talented lawyers to most powerful UK and US law firms. However, the law firms in these countries, not only survived but found ways and means to grow and become powerful themselves with competition and not only lured back their “lost talent” from the UK and US firms but also stopped to a larger extent the so called “brain drain” by providing good opportunities for the young lawyers in their country. As we have now seen, many of the US and UK law firms are now hiring extensively from Indian firms and universities as well. This clearly goes to show how matured and talented our lawyers have become. The Indian law firms ought to take up the challenge and provide ample opportunities to their juniors in order to retain them.

Another major concern was lack of a level playing field to compete with international law firms. The sheer size and revenue generated by the Multinational law firms in comparison to the largest domestic firms in India was one more issue raised in the meeting. It is apparent that in the presence of a level playing field in India for the legal services sector, there are glaring disparities among law firms in terms of size, revenue and quality even now. Going by the arguments advanced by domestic law firms opposing the entry of foreign law firms, smaller law firms should have already perished and the market should have been consolidated and dominated by a few firms. However, the truth is to the contrary, where all firms operating in the market today have managed to consolidate and discover a niche market for themselves. In the event foreign firms enter the market, disparities would remain and each firm would work around to ensure that it remains in competition. This has been a world wide phenomenon and is not going to change in the Indian context. If one looks carefully at all those countries which opened its door to foreign lawyers, one would see that the lawyers especially at the major firms have always been very sceptical of the opening of services since they are the most affected.