THE NEED OF REGULATED ADVERTISING
However, advertising
can be regulated through some limitations set by the Bar Council of India known
as ‘infortising’. The Bar Council can possibly lay down standards within which
the lawyers should be allowed to advertise or publish information, which, apart
from attracting new business for the lawyer, provides opportunity for the
practitioners to share information regarding their practice areas with
prospective clients. Also, lawyers do write articles, treatises or monographs
on some aspects of the law or on specific judicial pronouncements which gets
published in the journal sections of various law reports across the country
which portrays their vast arena of law. However, general public have nearly no
access to all them as these scholarly reports do not have wide circulation
amongst non-lawyers.
As long as
"advertising" is not offensive and effectively promotes legal
awareness and gives the clients opportunity to evaluate the caliber of their
potential counsel, there’s no substantial reason why advertising should be
barred. In many countries now, the legal profession itself provides a way for
litigants to find the lawyer best suited to their needs. The Bar Council of
England and Wales introduced its own benchmark for lawyer’s way back in 1999.
Called the Barmark, it indicates that chambers comply with the Bar Council's
Practice Management Standards and Guidelines.
Barristers' chambers in
England have their websites in internet which gets regularly updated. These
websites usually carry detailed curriculum vitae of the practicing barristers,
their achievements etc. These websites carry information on the specialized practice
areas of each advocate and also links and references to judgments in cases
where that lawyer had appeared along with sufficient contact details for the
chambers. This website proves a very valuable resource for the common people.
It is now high time that the Bar Council of India now realize that the legal
system in India is not just anymore only about the lawyers but also
professional law firms who need sufficient advertizing in order to survive in
this highly competitive market. The Bar Council should not only restrict its objectives
only for the welfare of the legal community but should play a greater role in
establishing a sustainable contact between the general public consisting potential
clients and lawyers.
If ‘Infortising’ can be properly implemented, many malpractices of the legal
practices carried out privately but not being accepted in public can be curbed
down. Though a noble profession by nature, the legal profession caters to a
very large public and should therefore open up itself in front of the general public
reasonably and should also lawyers should be held accountable for services
provided by them. This is even more relevant today as the legal services sector
in India is slowly getting open to 'foreign lawyers' or law firms as a part of
being a globalised economy and some of them have already started working in
alliance with some of the private practitioners or law firms in the country as
the current legal system doesn’t allow them to practice independently. Even
Medical profession is considered equally noble in nature throughout worldwide,
including India but hospitals and doctors are allowed to advertise about their
expertise, services provided by them and specialization in India.
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