Livemint has revealed interesting details about the fees charged by eminent senior advocates like Fali Nariman, Harish Salve, P. Chidambaram, A. M. Singhvi and others for a single appearance in the High Courts and the Supreme Court.
Ram Jethmalani leads the list with a fee of Rs. 25 lakh per appearance. Fali Nariman and Harish Salve rank high in the list with a fee ranging from Rs. 6 to Rs. 15 lakh depending on the complexity of the matter and the extent of argument required. P. Chidamabaram, the former Finance Minister, is reported to charge a fee of about Rs. 7 lakh per appearance. Abhishek Manu Sanghavi is in the same range while Kapil Sibal’s fee ranges from Rs. 5 to Rs. 15 lakh per appearance.
(Sorry for some inadvertent typographic mistakes in my earlier post)
We respect senior lawyers for their knowledge, intelligence and experience as well. But is also a patent truth that there is NO dearth of intelligence, energy level, knowledge and experience in the young Advocates, but they are not able to earn even to satisfy their basic requirements. I wish to say that the onus lies on the Senior Advocates and the Benches to encourage the juniors in their participation in the adjudicatory systems or at least in the ADR mechanisms say: mediation, arbitration or conciliation.
By somehow, If the law / or convention, as goodwill gesture, is made that filling of cases are to be got done through junior advocates, it will matter a lot to the junior fraternity. We can take a cue from the law that in the Honorable Supreme Court cases are filed by “Advocate on record” even though appearance in cases is made by Senior Advocates.
This is my humble suggestion in the interest of fraternity of advocates.
We respect senior lawyers for their knowledge, intelligence and experience as well. But is also a patent truth that there is dearth of intelligence, energy level, knowledge and experience in the young Advocates, but they are not able to earn even to satisfy their basic requirements. I wish to say that the onus lies on the Senior Advocates and the Benches to encourage the juniors in their participation in the adjuratory systems or at least in the ADR mechanisms say: mediation, arbitration conciliation.
By somehow, If the law / or convention, as good will gesture, is made that filling of cases are to be got done through junior advocates, it will matter a lot to the junior fraternity. We can take a cue from the law that in the Honorable Supreme Court cases are filed by “Advocate on Record” even though appearance in cases is made by Senior Advocates. This is my humble suggestion in the interest of fraternity of advocates.
There is nothing surprising to know the fee level of these renowned Advocates. In some cases, they charge much more than what is stated by Live Mint. Every person who is into practice know that in High Courts and Supreme Court, it is face value which matters. I have seen sometime senior advocates arguing on the wrong lines. Once I happen to listen to a Supreme Court Judge, who said that the only indulgence which a known Lawyer can get from the court is that he can allow him the hearing for a longer period and listen to him. It is perfectly right. It is also true that the High Courts and Supreme Court do not listen to young lawyers even if they are intelligent, capable and speak sense. Their matters are ignored as they are not known faces and are not sons of prominent lawyers.
Each to his own.
Can someone compile how much they reveal in their Incime tax returns ?
At times we read about heavy tax evasion by renowned names.
But as is normal Glamour ( of seniority) pays !
They are generally allowed to stand & speak for more time !
But it’s a fact that SOME of them pay tax on even 95/97.5 % of their receipts ! Hats off to them !
I do not understand the logic behind engaging the costly advocates. the matter is to be argued on the basis of facts and figures which could be argued by any advocate with the knowledge of law. Secondly, the benches are also influenced by the manner in which the so called the renowned advocates speak in English. there are are a lot more advocates who can present the case in a better manner and not so fluent in English of course.