India and Korea under spotlight

Solicitors are to launch a fresh lobbying drive to convince the governments of India and South Korea - two of the countries City law firms would most like to enter - to liberalise their legal practice rules.

The Law Society's international unit will send a representative to India next month on a familiarisation visit, with the aim of reviving a stalled dialogue on the liberalisation of legal services and laying the groundwork for future lobbying.

The visit will include meetings with the Bar Councils of India, Delhi and Mumbai, industry trade bodies, the Indian Law Commission, Indian firms, UK firms in India, and the British High Commission.

Alison Hook, the Society's head of international, said the trip had been planned to take place in advance of visits scheduled later this year by the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, and Lord Chancellor's Department minister Baroness Scotland.

Ms Hook said: 'It is important for us to make common cause with those sections of the Indian economy which want to encourage liberalisation and reform in the context of the General Agreements on Trade in Services.'

There have been concerted efforts in the past six years to open India, in the face of hostility from local lawyers.

In late 1999, the Indian Law Commission unveiled draft proposals to relax the country's hard- line opposition to foreign law firms, but these have not borne fruit.

Meanwhile, the Society is to work closely with the UK embassy in South Korea to encourage liberalisation of legal practice rules, in response to planned trade reforms by the new Korean government, which was elected earlier this year.

It is understood that a new draft market access proposal - currently being finalised by the Korean ministry of justice - would allow foreign law firms to establish in Korea, but not to employ Korean lawyers or to operate as partnerships.

There is currently a blanket ban on foreign lawyers in Korea.

Ms Hook said that if these proposals were accurate, then they were a great deal better than the status quo, but she added that the Society would continue to lobby for the right to practise in partnerships, and to employ local lawyers.

Jeremy Fleming