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Legal Services
experience. As a result, disputes will be forthcoming. While many of them will
be addressed through private arbitration, the volume of litigation around these
sorts of deals will expand considerably as ownership of IP from the technology
transactions and joint ventures will need to be unpacked. In the longer term
(4–5 years), there will be a greater need for “technical” IP mediation capability,
such as with patents, technical trade secrets, and software litigation.
Chatterjee participated in the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)/Intellectual
Property Rights (IPR) seminar as part of a delegation brought to India by the San
Francisco-based Institute for the Study and Development of Legal Systems
(ISDLS). Since 1996, the Institute, founded and led by attorney and law professor Stephen Mayo,
has collaborated with the Supreme Court of India, High Courts, and bar associations to
modernize India’s legal system. Its specific mission, at the invitation of India’s judiciary, has been
to design ADR and judicial case management processes that would reduce court backlogs overall
and, in particular, help expedite IPR cases through the High Courts.
ISDLS, working with legal study groups of Supreme Court and High Court judges and attorneys
created by then Chief Justice of India A.M. Ahmadi, helped develop reports and recommendations
to the Indian Law Commission (ILC). Based on that information, the ILC prepared a draft
law which was passed by Parliament in 1999 but was then tied up for three years in a constitutional
appeal by an Indian bar association.
In 2002, ISDLS participated in the exchange when a Supreme Court of India delegation
was hosted in Washington, D.C. by U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor
and Stephen Breyer. In 2003, ISDLS and the Law Commission co-hosted a national ADR
conference in India, and in 2005, the Institute launched two pilot ADR projects in the Delhi
district courts that produced settlement rates of 67% and resolved some 1,500 cases. In 2006, the
Delhi pilot projects were made permanent. Bay Area attorneys Victor Schachter, a partner with
Fenwick & West LLP in Mountain View, and Jeffrey Banchero, a partner with Kastner
Banchero LLP in San Francisco, helped direct the second six-month pilot mediation project.
Bay Area Law Firms Active in India (Partial List)
The Chugh Firm
Cooley Godward
Fenwick & West LLP
Foley & Lardner LLP
Greenberg Traurig LLP
Jones Day
Latham & Watkins LLP
Mayer Brown LLP
Nishith Desai Associates
Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
Perkins Coie LLP
Pillsbury Winthrop LLP
Ropers Majinski Kohn and Bentley PC
Shearman & Sterling LLP
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
White & Case LLP
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
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