Oxford/Herbert Smith International Training Programme at National Law school Bangalore

Once more, you get to know about a course attended by a privileged few at National Law School, Bangalore. Preeta Dhar, who attended this course herself, writes about her experience.

Closely on the heels of completion of the course on international finance conducted by Trilegal and Allen & Overy at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore this trimester, Herbert Smith, in collaboration with the University of Oxford, arranged an extra credit course for the students who would willingly undertake four hours of extra classes over and above the normal class hours for an enthralling learning experience.

The Oxford Law/Herbert Smith Joint International Training Programme was conducted from the 4th to the 8th of January. The course had two components: English Common Law and English Public Law taught by Professor Timothy Endicott, and private mergers and acquisitions, instructed by Chris Parsons. For introduction, Professor Timothy Endicott is the Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Oxford University, and Chris Parsons is a corporate partner at Herbert Smith and the Chairman of the India Group, and it may also be of interest of the readers of this blog to know that he is also the person in charge of graduate recruitment.

Professor Endicott took us through a most enlightening journey of the development of English constitutional and administrative law, spanning over 300 years. What we sought to explore in the course was how the concepts of ‘rule of law’ and ‘separation of powers’ played out and developed over time, and the evolving role of the judiciary, including the much debated scope of judicial ‘activism’. Over the five day course, we studied four landmark English decisions to understand what English judges have done to invent powers for themselves, and when and how it was appropriate to do so. Of course, our journey started at a long long time ago. Right from the time where England was just clusters of fiefdoms, and the Normans conquered them.

We studied four cases – R. v. Cowle, Ridge v. Baldwin, Associated Provincial Pictures Houses, Ltd. v. Wednesbury Corporation, and R (Corner House Research) v. Director of the Serious Fraud Office. It is difficult to avoid encounter with these landmark cases in the course of college. However, these classes provided a whole new learning experience. What I found most impressive about this component of the course, and Professor Endicott, is the clarity of concepts and the effortless ease and simplicity with which he introduced and discussed legal philosophy and developments. This component of the course culminated in a moot exercise in which there was a simulation of the situation of an appeal of the decision of R (Corner House Research) v. Director of the Serious Fraud Office. The interplay of the classroom discussions in the ‘court’ was a very exciting experience.

The second component of the course was a stark contrast to the first. Chris Parsons took us through the law and practice of private mergers and acquisitions. However, it was more in the nature of a hands-on learning experience. We started with getting familiarized with the key features of a private acquisition, stages in a transaction, warranties and indemnities and disclosure agreements. And well, we might as well engrave ‘due diligence’ in granite. However, if you thought that we were merely told about it, you are mistaken. We were given a situation of an acquisition with all sorts of imaginable issues involved – including terms of acquisition, liability, relationship between holding and subsidiary companies, property rights, intellectual property rights, labour law issues, competition law issues, and a few other which I might have missed out. The exciting part was translating contractual concepts into business transactions.

This component of the course was unique, in the sense that a large part of it was devoted towards building skills – starting from exercises in communication with another person (which involved one person drawing out a figure as per the descriptions of the other person) to negotiations. Personally, I found the latter extremely useful. We realized that law is as much a practice as a discipline, and negotiation skills are absolutely crucial. Especially in case of contracts involving complicated business transactions, it is not only important to know what is beneficial for the respective party, but it is also critical to understand the implications of each term, and negotiate them out such that it is acceptable for both party to enter into a contract.

We had two sets of negotiations in which Mr. Parsons highlighted the important aspects, as well as the mistakes people make, and what can be done about them. Herbert Smith had also put together a video clip of a simulation of a negotiation in which we got to see how the professionals go about such situations. Suffice it to say, that the law is alive, and it looked breathtaking in these classes!

And of course, I must mention the most tangible benefits of the course: a delegate kit, reading material, and excellent stationery.