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Isolationists on "the wrong side of history"

Published: Apr 26, 2010

 Law       

Bruce McEwen of Adam Smith Esq. takes a scathing view of the Indian legal industry’s attempts keep itself isolated. Last year’s high court decision barring foreign firms from operating in India and the more recent petition seeking to expel 31 foreign law firms (including White & Case) for illegally practicing law “out of five-star hotels and business centres” are both, in MacEwen’s view, futile attempts to turn back the clock:

The inexorable trend of the past century and more has been towards:

  • More powerful globalization;
  • More open national borders (in terms of trade in goods, in services, and vis-a-vis people and ideas);
  • And accelerated ’creative destruction’ as competition, in its ruthless but fabulous way, ensures that only the fittest survive.”

MacEwen illustrates his last point via this video that shows what happens when a 2009 Chevy Malibu has a head-on collision with a 1959 Chevy Bel Air. Or, in other words, “The Indian lawyers challenging US and UK firms are decisively and apparently blindly on the wrong side of history.”

-posted by brian

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