Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: In March this year, the Bar Council of India allowed foreign lawyers and law firms that have registered under the rules to set up their offices and practice law in India. Hitherto, only those who were Indian citizens were allowed to practice law in India, if they had obtained a law degree from an Indian university.
But countries across the world have been hiring and welcoming Indian law graduates for long. The UK, especially, has been a favourite destination for those aspiring to be barristers from India. They would study there and then either come back to India, like Mahatma Gandhi, or start their practice in England.
Arbitration, mediation
In 1975, there was one such Indian, named Sarosh Zaiwalla, who landed on the British shores with the dream of practising law there, and then went on to establish a law firm in Chancery Lane London in 1982. His firm is today counted among the highly successful law firms across the world.
Like the famous Netflix series, ‘Suits’, Zaiwalla’s law firm, called Zaiwalla & Co Solicitors, specialises in arbitration and mediation and has worked with the governments of various countries including India, the UK, China, Iran and Russia. Its areas of interest are commerce, contracts, energy, construction and shipping. Having done the difficult part of establishing and running a successful law firm, Zaiwalla set his hearts on writing a book about his multifarious legal encounters and experiences.
In 2020 his book ‘Honour Bound: Adventures of an Indian Lawyer in English Courts’ was published by HarperCollins. An e-version of this book is available on Google Books.
Trial and triumph
Google describes the book thus: “In this memoir, Zaiwalla looks back on his passage to England at a time when diversity had barely begun to take root in England’s legal circles, to now leading a ground-breaking law firm. His is a story of a solicitor who made his way on his own terms, with creativity but without ever compromising on his values.
While he still has many chapters ahead (a lawyer never retires after all), the ones that have concluded have created a storm in India, and feature a diverse cast including Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi, PV Narasimha Rao, VP Singh, the Hinduja brothers, the Dalai Lama, Benazir Bhutto, and Amitabh Bachchan. In this bold yet measured tale of trial and triumph, Zaiwalla tells all — as much as lawyer-client privilege permits of course.”
The two Forewords in the book have been written by Fali S Nariman, Delhi and Michael Brindle QC, London.
