Professional Misconduct

A senior at your college interns with a lawyer near the Mumbai sessions court. One day he sees a board outside a chamber: “Specialist in bail matters — 500 cases won”. Another morning he hears a colleague say “I will take your case, but I want a third of whatever you recover.” Neither sounds like a crime. Yet both can cost an advocate his licence. This topic asks what exactly counts as professional misconduct — and why the Act never tells you.

In two minutes

Professional misconduct is conduct by an advocate that breaches the standards of the profession — the Advocates Act 1961 punishes it under section 35 but never defines it, so its content comes from the Bar Council of India’s Rules on professional conduct and from decided cases.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Practical Training – I: Professional Ethics and Professional Accounting System on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.