Commonwealth training models for Senior Counsel: What the BCI can actually use

The Bar Council of India's press release on Ajay Vijh v. Indian Banks Association focuses largely on the parts of the judgment that are favourable to the profession - the Court's recognition of the Bar's independence and its self-regulatory character. However, the more useful part of the judgment for practical purposes is the direction on Continuing Legal Education (CLE) and the proposed National Legal Academy.

The Bar Council's press release needs to address the post-designation training and education for Senior Advocates, which is perceived as a professional priority in terms of the experiences across Commonwealth jurisdictions.

Across the Commonwealth, where the legal profession is part of a cherished heritage of law and justice, there is no institutionalised training for lawyers designated for their professional expertise or excellence. Their training ensues as a part of their professional avocation and their standing, which is enriched through continuing engagements at the Bar and at the Inns of Court.

In the United Kingdom, every barrister, King’s Counsel or junior is bound by the Bar Standards Board's (BSB) Continuing Professional Development (CPD) rules. Pupil barristers complete the New Practitioners' Programme, which is 45 hours over 3 years, with mandatory components on advocacy and ethics, after which they move to the Established Practitioners' Programme. This is not altered even when there is a designation of any practitioner as a King’s Counsel. A King’s Counsel with 40 years at the Bar and a junior 6 months into tenancy file the same category of annual CPD declaration.

New South Wales in Australia has mandated its professional arrangements in a similar vein, with 10 CPD units required a year spread across 4 compulsory fields: ethics, practice management, professional skills and substantive law, applied uniformly under the Legal Profession Uniform Law with no separate track for those conferred with silk.

Getting to across the Pacific, in Singapore's CPD regime, which recently reformed to a harmonised 16-point annual requirement across all categories of practising lawyers, also scales with the career stage generally and not specifically with the professional designation. Thus, in all three of these jurisdictions, seniority accords precedence in court and a different gown, but it does not enable exemption from, or add to, the CPD obligations everyone else on the roll has to comply with.

It is worth noting that Singapore's regulations require that Senior Counsel do not just consume CLE, but are expected to build and staff it. The Singapore Academy of Law lays down that Senior Counsel have a duty to lead and set an example for the rest of the Bar, especially younger members, and are required to contribute to academic teaching, writing and research, as well as to the institutions of continuing legal education. This is not just something written into a mission statement somewhere; it functions as a live, ongoing expectation attached to the title, separate from the ordinary CPD points every Singapore lawyer has to log.

Canada's provincial King’s Counsel schemes are more similar to Singapore's spirit than to the UK or Australia's CPD floor model, but on a more relaxed footing. British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba seek to build contribution for mentorship, legal scholarship, teaching or CLE into the selection criteria for KC; it is one of the things a nominee's file is expected to show. Manitoba's application guidance lists this explicitly as something the Advisory Council gives weight to. However, since the Canadian KC is an honour given by the Attorney General on the advice of an advisory council, and not a professional rank with ongoing regulatory conditions attached, there is no enforcement mechanism like Singapore's. A Canadian KC who stops teaching or mentoring the year after being appointed faces no consequence for it, because the requirement was really only a selection criterion for getting the honour, not a continuing condition of retaining it.

India, by comparison, has no CPD or CLE requirement of any kind for practising Indian advocates, senior or otherwise. This is not a gap specific to the Senior Advocate designation; it is a gap in the profession's regulatory structure as a whole. It is exactly the gap the Supreme Court's judgment points to when it says post-enrolment learning has so far amounted to little more than occasional seminars and ceremonial conferences. Indian practice also does not impose any formal, standing obligation on Senior Advocates to teach, mentor or contribute to institutional legal education once they are designated. Informal mentorship does happen - and quite generously in many chambers - but it remains a matter of individual conscience and reputation rather than a professional obligation, which is a sharp contrast to Singapore's model.

The BCI's own recent circular encouraging Senior Advocates to provide financial support and mentorship to juniors is telling in this respect. It is phrased throughout in aspirational language - the Council "hopes", "encourages" - treats mentorship as something firms "should" consider, precisely because there is no rule actually requiring it and no consequence for not doing it.

Looking at all this together, three ideas can be drawn out for the BCI's committee.

First, if continuing legal education is to mean anything beyond occasional seminars and ceremonial conferences, as the Court itself put it, it needs the kind of institutional ownership Singapore has - a body with its own budget, staff and enforcement power, not a voluntary framework that advocates can defer. The BCI's own data collection mandate on pendency, disposal and staffing across State Bar Councils is the right first step before sizing this institution properly.

Second, India should build a CPD floor that applies to the whole profession with Senior Advocates being included on the same terms as non-designated advocates, following the UK and Australian pattern. This alone would close the most basic gap, since right now there is no post-enrolment training obligation of any kind for any Indian advocate, senior or junior.

Third, and this is the point the Court's own emphasis on structured mentoring invites most directly, Singapore's model should be layered on top of that floor specifically for Senior Advocates, turning today's informal, reputation-dependent mentorship culture into a standing professional condition of the designation itself. A Senior Advocate who has been designated for exceptional skill and standing should be ideally suited for teaching at the proposed National Legal Academy, examining CLE modules, or formally mentoring juniors under the Academy's supervision. Singapore's experience suggests that stating this as an ongoing expectation, rather than a one-time credential on an application form, is what stops it from becoming the same voluntary goodwill that already, and insufficiently, governs junior mentorship in India today.

Closely following the BCI's circular that envisages a wide-ranging discussion on these themes relating to developing a CLE Model for India, it is hoped that a comparative analysis is examined before working towards a CLE Model that is truly Indian in its professional purpose.

Arvindh Pandian is a Senior Advocate practicing at the Madras High Court.