Bar Council Compliance Statement

1. Why this page exists

Most advocates who consider a listing ask the same question first, and they are right to ask it: does my name on this website amount to advertising? Rather than answer it one email at a time, the answer is set out here, with the rules it rests on, so that an advocate can read it, judge it, and decide.

2. Rule 36 and what it permits

Rule 36 of the Bar Council of India Rules (Part VI, Chapter II, Section IV) provides that an advocate shall not solicit work or advertise, whether directly or indirectly, by circulars, advertisements, touts, personal communications, interviews not warranted by personal relations, or by furnishing or inspiring newspaper comment or producing photographs to be published in connection with cases in which the advocate has been engaged.

In 2008 the Bar Council of India added a proviso, by resolution, permitting an advocate to furnish particulars on a website, in a prescribed form. The particulars the proviso lists are:

• name;
• address, telephone number and email address;
• enrolment number, date of enrolment and the State Bar Council of enrolment;
• academic and professional qualifications; and
• areas of practice.

An entry on this website carries those particulars, the courts where the advocate appears, the languages they speak, and a plain description of their work written by the advocate. It carries nothing that the proviso does not contemplate.

3. Why a directory entry is not an advertisement

An advertisement promotes; a directory records. The difference shows in what is absent:

• no adjective of quality — no "best", "top", "leading", "expert", "No. 1";
• no claim about outcomes, success rates or experience beyond the bare year of enrolment;
• no testimonial or review of an advocate;
• no comparison of one advocate with another;
• no position that can be bought; and
• no entry that the advocate did not ask for.

The listing is published at the advocate's own request and is taken down on the advocate's own word, the same day.

4. No fee, anywhere

No professional fee, fee range, "starting from" figure or price comparison appears anywhere on this website for any advocate. This is a deliberate choice, and a cautious one.

In P.N. Vignesh v. Bar Council of India the Madras High Court considered online platforms that listed, rated and priced advocates, and dealt with such conduct as touting rather than as the furnishing of information. The Bar Council of India followed with a circular in July 2024. Whatever the final shape of that line, publishing an advocate's price is on the wrong side of it, so we do not go there at all.

What an advocate charges is settled by the advocate with the client on the first call, and is paid to the advocate directly.

5. No rating, no ranking, no paid position

There are no stars, scores, badges or rankings on this website, and there is no advertising product of any kind for advocates. The list is alphabetical by name, and stays alphabetical inside every filter. Our Advocate Listing Policy states this as a working rule so that it can be held against us.

6. No fee sharing, in either direction

Rule 2 of Part VI, Chapter II, Section II of the Bar Council of India Rules prohibits an advocate from sharing or agreeing to share remuneration with a person who is not an advocate. Legal Space Services is not an advocate and takes no share of any professional fee.

Nor does money travel the other way. There is no listing fee, no subscription, no commission and no charge for enquiries. An advocate pays us nothing and we pay an advocate nothing. Our own documentation charges, where a client also uses that service, are separate, are billed to the client after the work is done, and have nothing to do with any advocate's fee.

7. No claim we cannot stand behind

Beyond the professional rules, the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and the Central Consumer Protection Authority's 2022 guidelines on misleading advertisements apply to us as they do to any business. Every factual statement on this website about an advocate comes from that advocate's own application and is verified against the enrolment particulars before it is published. Where we cannot substantiate something, it does not go on the page.

8. Your own responsibility

Nothing on this page, and nothing in our arrangement, displaces an advocate's own duty under the Advocates Act, 1961 and the Bar Council of India Rules. Those come first. If anything in the arrangement would place an advocate in breach of a professional rule, the professional rule prevails and the arrangement gives way — that is written into the Terms for Advocates as well.

An advocate who is uncertain should ask their State Bar Council before applying, and should ask us to take the listing down at once if the answer is that it should not be there.

9. If a Bar Council asks

If a State Bar Council or the Bar Council of India writes to us about this website or about any entry on it, we answer in full, and we take down whatever we are asked to take down while the question is being looked at. We would rather lose an entry than argue about one.

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