Top Five Law Firm Trends in India

What India’s top law firms are doing to stay ahead of the curve.
By Bithika Anand

The Indian legal industry has been expanding rapidly over the years in spite of global recession. With growth comes increased competition and India’s top law firms are looking at innovative ways to stay ahead of the curve.

This article showcases the top 5 trends that can be observed at a nascent stage today in Indian Law Firms and will become increasingly apparent in the future.

1. Mergers & Acquisitions and Breakaways
The competitive nature of the Law Firm Industry in India has created a situation where firms are looking to merge and acquire in order to strengthen and consolidate their position in the industry, while lawyers are looking to break away in order to create their own identity.

• Top tier firms are using alliances and acquisitions as growth initiatives.

• Mid-tier firms are looking to expand their geographical presence and practice areas through acquisitions of other mid-tier firms.

• Partners and senior associates are increasingly breaking away from top firms, either to start their own practice or establish synergies with other law firms.

2. Niche versus Full Service
There is a new fight between niche and full service law firms, partially due to the trend of breakaway firms. It is becoming evident that clients are looking beyond brands and toward confidence and comfort they share with individual partners, often following them to their new firms.

• Although most firms in India aspire to be full service, mid-sized firms are turning their size disadvantage into a competitive edge.

• They are focusing on specific practice areas and promoting expertise and quality over quantity.

3. Partnership Structure
Faced with boutique firms and increasing breakaways, traditional family partnerships and firms overly reliant on their founding partners are streamlining organizational structure.

• There is more focus on showing lawyers a clear path toward achieving meaningful partnership.

• Firms are modifying partnership structures, governance, and management models.

4. Firm Management
With growth, law firms are moving away from ad-hoc, founding partner-driven methods toward a more professional approach.

• More resources are being devoted to structured management systems.

• Firms are concentrating on comprehensive growth strategies that include marketing and branding, business development, and knowledge management initiatives.

5. Globalization
Indian law firms are increasingly attracting international attention. Foreign law firms see strong monetary potential in associating with the Indian legal industry.

• Liberalization has become a non-issue for most firms.

• Relationships with Indian firms (best friend, non-exclusive arrangements, etc.) ensure that international clients are represented adequately by both Indian and international counsel.

• This leads to more efficient international transaction management.

Conclusion
These trends suggest that the Indian legal industry is on a growth path that will be very difficult to slow down. The pie is big enough for all the players, but the question is who manages their firm well enough to take the biggest share.

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