Clifford Chance senior partner Stuart Popham, the sole UK law firm representative in the prime minister’s trade delegation to India, is expected to meet determined opposition from the country’s legal establishment to any attempt at opening up the market to foreign law firms.

Only domestic law firms are currently allowed to practise in India, although UK firms have long wanted to set up there and benefit from the country’s booming economy. Popham, who is chairman of The City UK, a newly formed body to promote the financial and professional services sector in overseas markets, held a meeting last week to discuss the issues he should raise while in India. The Law Society attended the meeting, as did magic circle firm Allen & Overy, City firm Herbert Smith and several banks and accountancy firms.

The meeting agreed that the UK should seek to reduce barriers to entry, and that liberalisation would mean more opportunities for young Indian lawyers. Reviewing the treatment of Indian firms in the UK was also discussed since reciprocity is a key issue.

But Popham will find it difficult to negotiate changes that allow British law firms access to India’s legal market.

On the day the delegation arrived in India (27 July), president of the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) Lalit Bhasin told national newspaper The Hindu that both SILF and the Bar Council of India were ‘totally and unequivocally opposed’ to the entry of foreign law firms from overseas. He welcomed mutual cooperation, assistance and sharing of knowledge among members of the legal profession, he said, but the ‘taking over or acquisition of the Indian legal profession could not be allowed’.

On the same day, India’s law minister Veerappa Moily told the country’s The Financial Express that there was ‘no question’ of allowing the UK to bulldoze the country’s more than two million lawyers into accepting foreign competition overnight.

The prime minister’s delegation is to visit Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi.