Chris Parsons, who recently stepped down as chairman of Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer’s India practice, looks back with warmth and candour on the remarkable transformation of India’s legal landscape over the past two decades
Little did I know in 2005 that India was about to become my second home for the next 20 years. Earlier in my 40-year career at Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) Kramer (as it was to become), I had spent time on secondment to our Hong Kong and Singapore offices. On returning to London in 2004, our then-senior partner (David Gold) came into my office and noticed I looked rather glum after my travels to Asia, so he asked if I would like to get involved in India as chair of our new India executive. I didn’t need to be asked twice. My love affair with India was about to start.
Taking my inspiration from Alastair Cook’s Letter from America, each time I returned from a trip to India, I produced what I called a Postcard from India in which I tried to capture the essence of each visit, complete with photographs. I shared this with our India leadership team and wider India group. Through these postcards, I was able to chronicle my observations of India over what has proved an extraordinary 20 years.
I have recently retired and, for the purposes of this article, I have tried to capture what has struck me most about the Indian legal landscape between 2005 and 2025. These are my personal observations and not those of HSF Kramer.
Indian law firms
When I first landed at the old Mumbai airport with its handful of craft shops, I was to discover a small legal elite heading just three firms — Amarchand & Mangaldas, AZB and JSA. Amarchand was the market leader, having been established in 1917 and now being led by Cyril Shroff in Mumbai and Shardul Shroff in New Delhi. JSA had been established in the early 1990s by Jyoti Sagar and was primarily a New Delhi firm, but was expanding rapidly in Mumbai under the leadership of Berjis Desai. AZB had only been created in 2004 and was led in Mumbai by Zia Mody and Bahram Vakil, and in Delhi by Ajay Bahl. This legal royalty was unlike any senior lawyers I had met before on my international travels, given their deep personal links to the families that dominated corporate India.
Khaitan & Co was essentially a Kolkata law firm with a presence in Mumbai through its recent office opening, backed by Haigreve Khaitan. Trilegal had been founded in 2000 by a group of ex-National Law School students, but had only just begun to register its presence on the radar of leading firms.
Despite their status, what I will stress at the outset is how welcoming this group of senior lawyers was to a relatively young newcomer from Herbert Smith in London.
My, how things have changed over the past 20 years. And the most obvious of these is the dramatic increase in size of the leading firms. Several of these firms now have more than 1,000 lawyers and have grown between 600 and 1,000% since 2005. But some things don’t change, and that is the contribution and influence of the same small number of law firm leaders.
Aside from size, specialisation, sophistication and India-wide office openings, my headline observations of the law firm market over this period include the following.
There was a rush for international alliances around 2008 when it felt like legal liberalisation was around the corner: AZB with Clifford Chance, Trilegal with A&O, TT&A with Linklaters, and (erstwhile) Platinum Partners with Freshfields. There was a genuine scramble for partners, and despite the pressure not to be left on the dance floor without one, we ultimately took the view that independence was best for clients. Most of these alliances ended when liberalisation didn’t materialise.
To the market’s surprise, Amarchand split in 2015, but it is to the credit of both CAM [Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas] and SAM [Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co] that they have gone on to thrive and remain firmly within the top six firms in India. The legacy of the split and the subsequent market disruption laid the grounds for a new approach to recruitment in India, where it was no longer culturally unacceptable for the top firms to poach from one another. The gloves were firmly off.
Khaitan went from being a Kolkata-based law firm with perhaps 100 lawyers in total to what it is today, with more than 1,000 lawyers and pan-India offices. Haigreve Khaitan and his leadership team deservedly get the lion’s share of the credit for this. As an interested observer, I was sceptical whether it was possible to grow a firm so quickly — would the partnership glue be sticky enough and would quality suffer? The firm even kindly invited me to a partnership off-site in Jaipur to discuss this and other issues. I must say the firm has proved me wrong and Khaitan is, without doubt, in the top six firms in India today.
It always felt like there was a place for a firm with a structure more aligned with international firms. In particular, around governance and remuneration. And it seems only appropriate that a group of lawyers from the National Law School (NLS) with international training and exposure should seek to fill that gap by establishing Trilegal in 2000. I admire many things about Trilegal, but what I admire most is their patience. It would have been easy to rush and build something without deep foundations. Having been overlooked by much of the market for several years, Trilegal’s name suddenly became synonymous with an elite group of firms as if that had always been the case. The years of patience have paid off.
During my 20 years, the perennial topic of legal liberalisation was always in the background. As a fresh-faced and newly established India-hand, I engaged with the topic with enthusiasm and hopefulness, attending meetings and conferences with members of the Bar Council of India, the English Law Society, government representatives, and others both in private practice and in-house.
As time went on, I approached each new development with caution. Even today with regulations and something of a pathway in place, it feels like liberalisation is still some way off. It feels to me that India will liberalise when it is ready and, in the meantime, a “fly-in fly-out” approach by international firms (as approved by the Indian Supreme Court) will continue to be a blessing for the airlines. British Airways wrote to me several years ago, thanking me for flying one million miles with them.
My own view is that liberalisation will ultimately be of overall benefit to India. And when pressed on what liberalisation might look like, I envisage international firms building mid-sized practices, but with the market still being dominated by the leading Indian law firms.
As to mental well-being in the workplace (a topic very close to my heart), the biggest form of disability and reason for absence in the workplace is mental ill-health, and lawyers struggle with this disproportionately. It remains a stigma in India as elsewhere. I have tried to make a small difference in this area by sharing my story with law firms. I have also spoken to corporates, banks, and private capital. Some progress has been made in trying to normalise mental ill-health so that it is treated the same as physical ill-health, and some changes have been made within a few firms. I hope this progress continues.
The premium legal market is led by six firms, namely CAM, SAM, AZB, Khaitan, JSA, and Trilegal. But without any real insight into financial metrics (as we see in the US and UK), it has always been difficult to fully differentiate between these firms. Law firm succession also remains a hot topic for debate over masala chai and vada pav.
In-house counsel
With a few notable exceptions, in-house legal teams in 2005 engaged in litigation, company secretarial functions and contract review. There was little movement between private practice and in-house teams. No one was called a “general counsel” because no one performed that function and it was often the CFO who had ultimate responsibility for the legal department.
When it came to instructing outside counsel on any significant matter, this often fell outside the remit of the in-house team. And that team would have little or no visibility into the high-level management decisions of the companies of which they were a part.
In the past 20 years, I have had the pleasure of watching in-house lawyers grow in stature and status. Private practice lawyers will now happily join in-house teams. The in-house function now often mirrors much more closely the sophistication and scale of their global counterparts, though the picture remains mixed.
International law firms
Throughout my tenure, international law firms have almost exclusively adopted a “fly-in fly-out” model. They established India-focused practices largely based in London or Singapore.
These practices would aim to act for Indian corporates outside of India or for international investors seeking opportunities in India. In each case, they would act alongside Indian counsel. On the disputes front, international arbitration has grown exponentially as a means of resolving large commercial disagreements.
The governing law for most of these cross-border deals was almost exclusively English law; hence, at the outset, those firms focused on India were a handful of international law firms with a large London presence. The scale of work for these Indian practices closely tracked 91视频 emergence on the global corporate stage. When I first got involved with India, there were hardly any significant cross-border deals. The only big deal I can recall prior to 2005 was the purchase of Tetley Tea by the Tata Group around 2000. But the Tata Group continued its international expansion later in the decade with the acquisition of Corus by way of public bid (still the largest cross-border deal out of India) and of Jaguar Land Rover from Ford. These bold moves by Tata kick-started a growing cross-border trend, which would see Bharti Airtel acquire Zain Africa, and Facebook and Google make significant investments in Reliance Jio.
The arrival of private capital in India chasing the unicorn story also ushered in the US law firms working alongside them. And like all things American, the US firms made a significant impact on the legal landscape. Domestic firms will now often look to US firms as a source of referral work ahead of UK firms.
Despite the size of the Indian economy, the number of international law firms with successful and sustainable Indian practices remains fairly small. India is not always the easiest market to operate in. One of the things that became clear early on when focusing on Indian clients and the Indian market more generally was the importance of relationships and the need for a long-term commitment to the country. A couple of visits to India each year was never going to demonstrate this.
One of the important reasons for our own success in the market was, I believe, in part due to our wider commitment to India, focused largely on our support for the national law schools, but also on our broader social commitment.
We established a corporate law moot in Kolkata with the Natonal University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS; thank you Mithun Thanks and Professor MP Singh) and an international negotiation competition in Delhi with National Law University, Delhi (thank you Sid Shukla, Professor Ranbir Singh and Associate Professor Daniel Mathew), both of which have been running for many years. Our one-week international lecture programme with Oxford University (thank you, Professor Timothy Endicott) has run at different law schools for more than a decade, underpinned by this commitment. This did not always feel just altruistic, especially when staying in the wonderful RAAS hotel in Jodhpur, nestled under the Mehrangarh Fort and teaching each day at National Law University Jodhpur (NLUJ).
Our wider commitment included support for street children in Kolkata and three significant fundraisers for widows and their children in Delhi, Varanasi, and Jammu and Kashmir. I was able to raise over USD800,000 through a padyatra (journey on foot) from Mumbai to Bengaluru and by a cycle ride from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. Spending so many days on foot or by bike gave me a rare insight into the beauty and variety of rural India, and a chance to appreciate every day the hospitality and warmth of India, often expressed through a masala chai.
Our annual Indian internship programme also helped set us apart. Established in 2007, we looked to recruit brilliant Indian law students to train in London. And I always said that when that programme started producing HSFK partners, I would be able to retire a happy man. It did, and I am.
In my early years, I found that many Indian clients objected to being advised by Indian lawyers at international law firms (“why would we not instruct local lawyers”), but that has changed completely. Almost without exception, foreign India practices are now headed by and include Indian nationals. Cultural heritage and comfort count for a lot. I am very proud of the team that now leads HSFK’S India practice, namely Alan Montgomery, Sid Shukla, and DJ Chak. And I also wanted to acknowledge the contribution of Roddy Martin, often the unsung hero of the practice.
Indian corporates
Other than size and sophistication, Indian corporates have changed little during my time in India. The dominant Indian business houses are still conglomerates, unlike most businesses in the West, and they remain led by promoter families who also control much of the equity. The head of the leading families are as famous in India as Bollywood stars or cricketing legends. Mention their first names, and everyone will know who you are talking about: Mukesh, Ratan (before his passing), Gautam, and Kumar Mangalam.
Having access to and earning the trust of these promoters and those very close to them can be critical to winning legal mandates. In 2005, India was dominated by just two groups, Tata and Reliance. Today, those two remain dominant but have been joined by three more corporate giants, namely, Adani, Aditya Birla and Bharti. Others are not far behind.
The other trend I have witnessed over my 20 years is the growth of unicorns in India, powered by private capital. India is now positioned third in global league tables after the US and China, and well ahead of the UK, Germany, France and Singapore. I also like to add that a significant number of the US unicorns were founded by Indians.
Luckily for me, the significant Indian corporates, law firms and law schools are based in a variety of cities, giving me the opportunity to experience a wide cross-section of India. My usual routine would see me fly into India overnight, check into one of the wonderful Indian hotels (who would welcome me home) and then go for a run to acclimatise — the hotter the better. If I close my eyes now, I can be transported back to Marine Drive, Lodi Gardens, Nehru Park, Cubbon Park and to endless side streets with chaiwalas — a particular favourite was running along Janpath in May between Claridges and the National Museum with its concentration of flying foxes overhead.
Indian law schools
While there are thousands of law schools in India, the most prestigious are the designated national law schools, which began life in 1987 with the establishment of NLS, Bangalore, under the leadership of the great Professor Madhava Menon, regarded as the father of modern legal education in India.
In 2005, there were just seven national law schools. Today, there are over 25.
I have had the privilege of teaching at many of these schools and because of travelling to many Indian states, I have sampled a wonderful array of Indian cuisine. For a man with a very sweet tooth, no visit to NUJS in Kolkata is complete without mishti doi served in a small earthenware pot and made with jaggery.
Over the years, there has been no doubt in my mind that the top students coming out of these schools are as good as the best law students from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, or Sydney. And having interviewed students from across the world, the cleverest student I ever interviewed was from India.
Based solely on our recruitment for our Indian internship programme, the top schools are NLS, National Academy of Legal Studies and Research, NUJS and NLUJ and, from the private sector, the Jindal Global Law School led by the exceptional Professor Raj Kumar.
Just to address any concern about favouritism, I have also had the good fortune of teaching at law schools outside the mainstream, including one in Nandurbar in the northwestern corner of Maharashtra. Thank you to Rajendra Raghuvanshi, the ex-solicitor general of India, for inviting me.
Conclusion
Of course, India has become shinier during the past 20 years — and never more obvious than in the dramatic change to major Indian airports and in the wonderful new HQ offices and campuses housing 91视频 corporate elite and major law firms. But I remain selfish, and I don’t want India to lose its colour and grittiness. I stand by Professor Ramachandra Ghua in describing India as the most interesting country in the world.
India embraced me with its warmth. I consider myself deeply fortunate to have called India my second home for more than 20 years, and I have made so many friends over that time, many of whom consider me half Indian. Not many have the great good fortune of building a career in the place they love. My Postcards from India remain a testament to that love affair.
