Indian lawyers: The world awaits you!

India’s law firms should broaden their horizons by internationalizing their practices, argues Stuart Popham, the senior partner at Clifford Chance

Over the last decade, India has become a world trading power. The country’s impact on the global business community has been strengthened by strides in product research and IT innovation, wealthy industrialists that have topped the Forbes list, and its expanding base for diverse outsourcing. We see Indian specialists becoming more influential, venturing abroad to build businesses and developing, for instance, world-class information technology, pharmaceuticals, and offshore services, while acquiring companies with production lines as varied as whiskey, cars and steel. One-third of all new businesses currently started in the Silicon Valley are run by entrepreneurial Indian immigrants.

Young scientists, economists, doctors, accountants and financial advisers, are enthusiastic about receiving global experience and exposure, and keen to internalize and share new skills on an international platform. These professionals are the gateway to successful commercial activity in India’s future. What’s missing you ask? Indian lawyers is the answer.

With a strong foundation in common law and an immutable belief in the rule of law, the 980,000 lawyers in India have flourished. As in many other countries, lawyers occupy significant governmental positions and have simultaneously broadened their horizons by entering the business arena. But only a handful of law firms have made moves to look outside India. US firms have long operated across continents, and UK-based firms are clearly leaders in the world of the law. But India is missing out.