Frustration over faltering attempts to liberalise India’s highly-restrictive legal market is dampening City lawyers’ hopes for the much-touted emerging market, according to new research.

Results of the latest Legal Week/EJ Legal Big Question survey found that 50% of respondents rated India as ‘unimportant’ as a source of legal work compared with 34% ranking it ‘quite important’ and just 16% as ‘very important’.