Lauren Scott reports from the IPBA annual conference in New Delhi.
Spirituality and enlightenment are deeply embedded in India's culture - some might say they are its essence. And so New Delhi served as a fitting location for the 13th Annual Meeting and Conference of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association, which aimed to put legal business in the context of philosophy.
'The Dawn of the New ICE Age - Legal Issues Arising from Convergence' was the official theme of the conference, held over February 16 to 19. Information technology and telecommunications - rapidly developing sectors in India - proved a focal point for several conference sessions, which boasted an impressive line-up of speakers from across the legal, business and political spectrums.
Conference numbers were down on previous years, with around 460 registered delegates (the Hong Kong conference last May attracted 876 participants, while delegate numbers for the Tokyo conference in 2001 were around 800). The lower turnout was undoubtedly due to concerns over New Delhi as the conference location, following official travel warnings post-September 11.
Organizational efforts were also marred as a result, with Lee Suet Fern, IPBA Banking, Finance & Securities Committee Chair, describing the conference as among "the hardest in memory" to organize, amid immense pressure to relocate it to New York.
Rajiv Luthra of local firm Luthra & Luthra, and a member of the Organizing Committee, downplayed talk of internal ructions, despite local firm politics being played out in the background. Prominent Indian firm Fox Mandal, which had been heavily involved at the outset in the organization, was a notable absentee amid rumblings of political differences with incoming IPBA president and Chair of the India Host Committee, Ravi Nath.
To the credit of the conference organizers however, the hastily conceived programme (the organizers had less than six months to draw it together) attracted widespread praise, with technical sessions interspersed with roundtable discussions and open forums (including a corporate counsel forum) and special sessions such as the Women Lawyers' event on 'Managing the Media'.
One of the most talked about sessions was the second of two plenaries: 'Dawn of the New ICE Age - Philosophical Considerations on Convergence'. Guri Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, founder of The Art of Living Foundation and sometime spiritual adviser to the rich and famous, added a touch of celebrity to the proceedings as the keynote speaker.
Sraddhalu Ranade, billed as a scientist, educationist, and 'traveller on the spiritual path', also spoke on the spiritual aspect of life. Hard-nosed legal critics would have looked on in amazement as a roomful of the profession's adherents meditated under the Guru's watchful eye. In contrast to the inaugural ceremony in which mobile phone tones periodically punctuated the proceedings, "you could have heard a pin drop" was the refrain of those who attended the Plenary. The Guru's counsel sagely concluded with the observation that there is ultimately in every person a spiritual side that seeks peace and joy - even litigators.
Let the conference begin
The inaugural ceremony held at the Convention Hall in Delhi's Ashok Hotel, with the theme of 'light', marked the start of the conference. The master of proceedings called on IPBA President Vivien Chan - flanked by India's Union Minister for Disinvestment, IT & Technology, Arun Shourie, Chair of the India Host Committee and IPBA President-Elect, Ravi Nath, and Conference Co-ordinator, Lalit Bhasin - to begin proceedings with the symbolic gesture of lighting an oil lamp, declaring that "the light will lead us to knowledge and enlightenment - and dispel dark thoughts".
The gesture was followed by an invocation in Sanskrit, representing the 'eternal truth', and a Kathak dance entitled 'An Ode to Light' performed by danseuse Shovana Narayan. The ceremony concluded with an armed forces band playing the National Anthem of India.
Ravi Nath welcomed guests, which included judges of India's Supreme and High Courts, IPBA past presidents and delegates from as far-flung locations as Chile.
"We have all come through these weeks and months of preparation with our sense of humour intact," he told the audience.
Thanking the chairs of the conference organizing committees, Nath urged members not to measure the success of a conference by the number of participants. "Let us serve as a magnet for dedicated people who want to learn," he declared.
Nath invited foreign delegates to "view India as they find it", pronouncing it a vast intellectual centre, with a "large and open market [and] skilled workforce".
He then went on to praise Disinvestment Minister Shourie, widely regarded as a great hope in Indian politics, for his role in "quickly dismantling" the red tape surrounding Indian administration and pushing for legal-sector reform.
In a short address, Chan welcomed delegates and appealed to them to enjoy the conference theme as a "timely address of the myriad legal and regulatory complexities arising from convergence of information technology - the key concerns of every lawyer".
Shri Shourie then took to the stage, speaking passionately of the need for a more malleable approach to formulating laws to adapt to the ever-changing business and technological environment.
"Often laws are passed on the assumption that the environment that prevailed on the passing of the law will continue for a long time," he told the audience. "Life outpaces and precedes a fast-paced industry like the law. Legal thinkers should devote themselves from time to time to setting up transitional schemes… and build them into the law originally."
Shourie did manage to introduce a light note into the proceedings, referring to his days as a former editor of the English-language daily The Indian Express where he made his mark exposing corruption in government ranks.
"I am here mainly because for a writer like me who gets into trouble so often, I have to keep in the good books of the lawyers who defend me," he told the amused audience.
The Minister also spoke of the many opportunities in India arising from the "lightning speed" at which IT and other disciplines were developing, and of the resilience of the economy.
"The sanctions imposed on India a few years ago have not affected economic life in the slightest," he said. And although India constantly lurched from "one crisis to the next", it had managed to prosper in spite of it.
New Delhi conference coordinator Lalit Bhasin gave the vote of thanks, describing Shourie as a "national asset" and a man with "rare" qualities of "impeccable integrity and unmatched patriotism".
Social scene
The social programme for the conference gave delegates the opportunity to experience a taste of authentic Indian life while busily networking. An informal drinks/dinner gathering with an Indian village theme followed the inaugural ceremony.
Caparisoned elephants greeted delegates and accompanying guests, who were ushered into an open grassed area where a colourful mix of fire-eaters, magicians, dancers and musicians proved popular entertainment. A formal dinner was held the following evening at one of New Delhi's grand examples of colonial architecture, The Imperial Hotel, where the Honourable Chief Justice of India, Shri VN Khare, was the evening's chief guest.
The designated 'Fun Evening' on the third evening proved a highlight, with delegates boogying away to the sounds of Indi-pop and Bollywood rock delivered by renowned Indian singer Usha Uthup.
The conference officially ended with a closing dinner, beginning with a viewing of artifacts in the Sanskriti museums of Everyday Art and Terracotta, and including a half hour of classical Indian dance performance.
The sessions
The programme commenced with two plenaries, which aimed to give delegates a feel for India's information, communication and entertainment industries and their developments in a philosophical context. There were also 17 committee programmes and a number of cross-disciplinary joint sessions, with speakers drawn from both private and in-house practice, as well as the business and political communities.
The keynote speaker for the Environmental Law session was the Honourable Justice Kuldip Singh, a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India, who spoke on the origin and development of environmental law jurisprudence in India.
India's Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, chaired Plenary I, with speakers including the President of NASSCOM, representing India's software and service industries, a representative of the Indian Government's Planning Commission, Bharti Tele-Ventures chairman and group managing director Sunil Mittal, and Shekhar Gupta, editor-in-chief of The Indian Express.
The Corporate Counsel Forum, with the theme 'How and why we hire or fire you', was particularly well attended, as might be expected. The panel included the general counsel of Proctor and Gamble India Ltd, Bechtel Corporation, USA, General Electric International, HK, Aditya Birla Group, India, and ITC Limited, India.
IPBA president Vivien Chan chaired the forum, at which India's attorney general Soli Sorahjee gave a special address. Says Chan of the session: "It was good to hear that corporate counsel look for passion and creativity in their lawyers. These are actually attributes a lot of lawyers have, but don't go out of their way to advertise."
Another popular session was the Legal Development and Training Committee Programme on law firm management, targeted at Indian law firms. The cross-disciplinary joint sessions included the Banking, Finance and Securities session, the Dispute Resolution & Arbitration session, and the International Trade & Tax Law session (which examined key legal issues surrounding the distribution of products and digital content across the Asia-Pacific and included five roundtable discussions).
The four chairs included Lee Suet Fern of Singapore firm Stamford Law Corporation, Cedric C Chan of US firm Morrison & Foerster, the International Trade Committee's David A Laverty, and International Counsel USA Jan Kooi of Omnicom Europe Ltd, UK.