The Legal Industry in India has been witnessing the most eventful phase of its evolution during present times. This phase has been driven by new business opportunities, the proliferation of smaller law firms, growth of LPO alternatives, impending entry of foreign law firms and thus the market is in transition. This is needless to say that this change has been presenting newer challenges, which in turn have been setting off a dire need to be able to manage legal businesses more proficiently in India.
The economy in today’s times has unveiled a plethora of opportunities for professionals called as legal consultants. This past decade has been profusely called “The decade of legal consultants in the world of lawyers”. So the question here is, “what is it that a legal consultant does which is so different from the traditional lawyers which we had a decade ago?”. Law consultants use the market to display their legal expertise to clients in a manner that explores the realm outside the traditional legal representation. They have been known to offer legal expertise on significant matters such as employment, securities, governmental compliance and structural organization. They have also performed “in-house investigations”, which according to legal parlance has been called due diligence.
“In simple words, just like prevention is beer than cure, the legal consultant helps you manage and identify legal risk, be it personal, professional, corporate, HR, labor-related. Today’s market for legal consultant means the growth in the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary sector. This technological growth and numerous other factors are challenging the initiative and creativity of lawyers.”
Lately, this large global enterprise that has been operating in India needs legal consultants to be able to advise them on ancillary services such as investment advice, consulting services, and venture capital etc. This has propelled the lawyers away from traditional law practice and into becoming professional individuals that provide such core competency services. Even law schools have now customized their academics to be based on similar lines. An example being, “Harvard Law School has established the Center on Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry, a first of its kind program in India.”
Given today’s economy, recent times have been demanding both the factors – commerce and employee satisfaction & security. This has been done by identification of risk and providing/its mitigation by the legal consultants. All of the employees want to be protected in their professional environment. This sort of awareness towards professional security has led the employer and the employee, to head towards a legal consultant who can brief them about the legal risk involving HR, harassment, labor law and policies etc.
The legal profession has visibly evolved away from the stereotypical old fashioned way of lawyers only doing litigation and this process is no longer confined to the court rooms. “It has moved to the corporate world in a major way with advisory function in all aspects – professional and personal. Legal Consultants today must provide excellent client service as well as a market to new clients; manage their staff and their finances to be successful.”
These lawyers require not only brilliant legal skills and knowledge but also good interpersonal and management skills. With immense globalization, the corporate world has also opened up to the demand for “in-house legal consultants” and also for the law firms to cater to the specific needs in Tax, intellectual property protection, environmental protection, competition law, corporate taxation, infrastructure contracts, corporate governance and investment law. This new concept though existent was almost dormant prior to the last decade.
These organizations have been completely dependent on their legal consultants to effectively bring about a safe business plan, finances, tax benefits and employee-related policies by calling out the legal risks and providing mitigation. “The competency of today’s legal consultant is not confined to Indian jurisdiction like in the old times and days, but the increased international boundaries of trade has made competency in fields of Interntaional law like Arbitration, Public law, Human rights, Civil liberties and bill of rights a must.”
It has been proof enough and most definitively evident that in the last few years of the last century this service sector has seen the most exponential growth in the legal profession. Legal consultants have been not on a growth plan but a flight plan from a career perspective.
