1.
Satish Maneshinde: -
Satish Maneshinde is a top-notch criminal lawyer, who had originally come to Mumbai in
1983 as a penniless law graduate from Kawar, Karnataka. For 10 years, he worked as Junior
of Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, practising both civil and criminal law. He became famous
after he secured a bail for for Sanjay Dutt in the Bombay blast case and for Salman Khan who
allegedly killed one person while driving drunk.
He argues calmly in court and looks straight into the judge’s eyes. Some of the high-profile
cases/clients represented by Mr. Maneshinde include: securing bail for Salman Khan in
drunken driving case where he allegedly killed one person; Supercop Daya Nayak (in a
disproportionate assets case), top bookie Shoban Mehta; ganglord Chhota Rajan’s wife Sujata
Nikalje in a case under the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act; representing Rakhi
Sawant when a youth committed suicide after she called him namard (impotent). According
to India today, his fee per day is believed to be Rs 10 lakh.one of his most recent cases was
Sushant singh Rajput suicide case. He managed many high profile cases like “1993 Mumbai
Blasts” for Sanjay Dutt and the “Drunk Driving” case for actor Salman Khan. He defended
both superstars and also proved to be a GO-TO man for both of them. Born in 1965, Satish
Maneshinde’s Age is 55 Years as of 2020. He was born and brought up in a middle-class
family in Dharwad, Karnataka, India. He completed his early schooling from a private school
and after that, he enrolled himself at the Karnataka University College of Law from where he
completed his graduate course in Bachelor of Commerce and then completed his LLB.
degree. Satish Maneshinde belongs to a middle-class Hindu family in Karnataka, India. He
follows the Hindu religion and holds an Indian nationality. His father is Karnataka based
businessman and his mother is a homemaker. Satish Maneshinde started his career in 1983
when he came to Mumbai and started an internship under the celebrated criminal lawyer late
Ram Jethmalani. He worked as a junior lawyer in his initial days and worked as an apprentice
of Ram Jethmalani for about 10 years. Meanwhile, he practiced civil and criminal law and
handled cases of actors, politicians, and other celebrities.
He made the headlines and a trademark in his career when he defended the Bollywood star
Sanjay Dutt in the 1993 Mumbai Blasts case. Along with these cases, he also managed cases
like “Mumbai police inspector Daya Nayak’s Disproportionate Assets Case”, “Bookie
Shoban Mehta’s match-fixing case”, “Chhota Rajan’s wife Sujata Nikalje’s case”, and
“Rakhi Sawant’s abetment to suicide case”. He is one of India’s topmost criminal lawyers,
advocate, and entrepreneur and charges a hefty fee of around 10 Lakh rupees per hearing.
2. Ram Jethmalani: -
Mr. Ram Boolchand Jethmalani (born 14 Sep 1923) is the best veteran criminal lawyer in
India, Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) and Emeritus professor of law. He has served as
India’s Union Law Minister and as chairman of the Bar Council of India. He is the highest
paid lawyer in the country; he charges Rs. 40 lakh for taking up the case and Rs. 10 to 20
lakhs per appearance thereafter. However, he claims that 90 percent of the cases he has
fought are free of cost. At the age of 93, he has the distinction of being one of the oldest
active lawyers of the country and at 18 he was the youngest member of the bar. An exception
was made out for him to enable to enable him to join the bar the age of 18 because the
minimum age for enrolling as a lawyer was 21 then.
He is very best at cross-examination of witnesses and his skills as trial lawyer are enviable.
He has defended for clients whose political ideology is vastly different from his own, and he
has represented people from extremely different social backgrounds. Mr. Ram Jethmalani has
several high profile defense cases to his credit. From appearing in famous KM Nanavati vs
Maharashtra government case in 1959 to 2G accused in multi-crore 2G spectrum scam in
2011, he has represented all kind of matters. He extended his support to the ex-servicemen on
the “One Rank One Pension” and assured that he will lead their legal battle in the apex court
without charging any fees.
Jethmalani obtained his LL.B. degree at the age of 17 and started practising law in his
hometown, Shikarpur, until the partition of India. The partition led him to move to Mumbai
as a refugee where he began his life and career afresh. He announced his retirement from
judicial profession in 2017. Throughout his political career, Jethmalani worked for improving
the relations between India and Pakistan, owing to his experiences as a refugee post-partition.
He was elected as member of the Lok Sabha twice, on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tickets,
from the Mumbai North West constituency. He also served as the union minister of urban
development in the first Atal Bihari Vajpayee ministry, against whom he later contested
election in the 2004 Indian general elections from the Lucknow constituency. He later
returned to BJP in 2010, and was elected to the Rajya Sabha on its ticket.
Jethmalani was awarded the Human Rights Award by World Peace Through Law in 1977. He
authored books such as Big Egos, Small Men; Conscience of a Maverick; and Maverick:
Unchanged, Unrepentant; among others. He also co-authored legal scholarly books on
different fields of law. During his career he was involved in a number of high-profile defence
cases as lawyer – people involved in market scams (Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh), and a
host of gangsters and smugglers including the British citizen Daisy Angus who was acquitted
of hashish smuggling after serving five years in jail. He also defended L. K. Advani in the
Hawala scam. He was in the news for taking up the defence of Manu Sharma, prime accused
in the Jessica Lall murder case; however, he failed to get Manu Sharma acquitted. He was to
be defending Lalit Modi, former Indian Premier League chairman and commissioner. Some
of the cases Jethmalani appeared in include — the defence of Indira Gandhi's alleged
assassins, challenging the medical evidence deposed of dr. t d dogra, a foresic expert of
aiims, on record; defending Harshad Mehta in a stock market scam and the Narasimha Rao
bribery case; defending Ketan Parekh in a stock market scam; appearing in a case involving
Mumbai mafia gang leader, Haji Mastan; speaking on record against the death sentence of
Afzal Guru, though he had not taken up the case; defending L K Advani in the Hawala scam
defending Manu Sharma in Jessica Lall's murder;defending Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin
encounter case;defending Amit Jogi in the Jaggi murder case; appearing for Sanjay Chandra's
bail in the 2G spectrum case; appearing for Kulbhushan Parashar's bail in the navy war room
leak case; defending Kanimozhi in the 2G spectrum case; appearing in Y. S. Jaganmohan
Reddy's special leave petition on stay for C.B.I. probe into money laundering in his
companies; appearing in Yeddyurappa's case on an illegal mining scam;defending A. G.
Perarivalan, T Suthendraraja alias Santhan, and Sriharan alias Murugan, all convicted in the
Rajiv Gandhi assassination case;defending Ramdev in case of allaged use of force on his
followers at Ramlila grounds on 4 June 2011; defending Shiv Sena in Krishna Desai's
murder; defending Asaram Bapu in the Jodhpur sexual assault case;defending Lalu Prasad
Yadav in the supreme court and appearing for his bail in the fodder scam case, on 13
December 2013;appearing for Subrata Roy in the Sahara-SEBI case;appearing for AIADMK
leader Jayalalithaa, convicted in a disproportionate assets case by the Karnataka High Court
and, appearing for AAP president Arvind Kejriwal, in a defamation case filed by Arun
Jaitley, amongst others.
3. Gopal Subramanium: -
Gopal Subramanium, aged 56, is a Senior Advocate who practices primarily in the Supreme
Court of India and the Delhi High Court. He has served as the Solicitor General of India from
2009-2011 and also served as Chairman of Bar Council of India during his stint as the
Solicitor General. He was the key person responsible in the introduction of the All India Bar
Examination, a mandatory test for law graduates to be eligible to practice in India. In 1993,
Mr. Subramanium was designated a Senior Advocate suo-moto by the Supreme Court, one of
the youngest to be so designated in the Supreme Court’s history. Gopal Subramanium
charges a fees of Rs 7 to 15 lakh per appearance in the Supreme Court and for appearance
before the Delhi high court he charges Rs 11 to 16.5 lakh. And in case of tribunals, he
charges at Rs 25 lakh per hearing. He represented the State of Bombay as Special Public
prosecutor in the terrorist attack case in Mumbai in which Kasab’s death sentence was
confirmed, Acted as lead counsel for the union government in 2010-2011 in litigation
concerning irregularities in allocation of 2G radio-spectrum bandwidth to various private
telecom operators, Represented the government of India in the matter of Ashoka Kumar
Thakur v. Union of India, wherein he defended state-sponsored reservations for Other
Backward Classes of persons in India, He is also appeared on behalf of the state in the 1993
Bombay blasts case before the Supreme Court, Acted as amicus curiae to the Supreme Court
in the case of Bachpan Bachao Andolan v. Union of India, where he presented a report on the
realities of trafficking of children in India and assisted the Supreme Court in framing
guidelines to deal with the menace of trafficking.
After resigning as a solicitor general, he appeared in a case against the appointment of SEBI
chief. The UP government fielded him when a petition against grand prix Formula – I race
was filed just ahead of the event. He represented Novartis in the case Novartis v. Union of
India & others concerning ever-greening of patents.
4. Johnnie Cochran: -
Johnnie L Cochran, Jr. was a well-known American lawyer renowned for dealing high profile
as well as highly publicised police brutality cases associated with the African-American
community. He represented several high profile clients like Michael Jackson, Sean Combs,
Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur, Riddick Bowe and Todd Bridges among many others. He was
reputed for his legal acumen, courtroom skills and trial tactics whether for cases involving
celebrities and superstars or for those of common men shoved into unusual situations.
However the one case that led him to the spotlight garnering international prominence and
making him arguably one of the most reputed trial lawyers of the world apart from becoming
a celebrity himself was that of former American footballer O.J. Simpson who was charged of
double murder. Cochran played a leadership role in the defence team of lawyers of Simpson
and successfully defended the latter in a highly publicised and televised trial that became
somewhat of a “trial of the century”. His trial tactics and demonstrating skills put the police
and prosecution on the defensive leading Simpson’s defense team to suggest racist behaviour
of police department and framing of charges against the footballer thus leading to the
acquittal of Simpson. He served as Chairman of the ‘Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone’,
whose objective is to revitalize economically deprived communities. He set up the ‘Johnnie
L. Cochran, Sr. scholarship’ at University of California, Los Angeles for African-American
men. Johnnie L Cochran, Jr. was born on October 2, 1937, in Shreveport, Louisiana, US in
the family of Johnnie L. Cochran Sr. and his wife, Hattie. His father was with ‘Golden State
Mutual Life Insurance Company’ as an insurance salesman and his mother used to sell
products of Avon. His great-grandfather was a slave. His family like millions of other
African-American families shifted to the West Coast at the time of the second phase of the
‘Great Migration’ and in 1949 they settled in Los Angeles. He remained among around two
dozen African-American students at that time who studied at the ‘Los Angeles High School’
and graduated first in his class from the high school in 1955.
5. Amal Clooney: -
Amal Clooney, born Amal Ramzi Alamuddin, is a Lebanese-British barrister, human rights
activist and philanthropist. A graduate of Oxford University and New York University
School of Law, her long and accomplished career in the fields of international law and human
rights have won her international acclaim. Her high-profile clients have included several
nation-states, including the country of Armenia in its fight for recognition of the Armenian
Genocide by the Turkish government. Amal Clooney became engaged to and married
American actor George Clooney in 2014, instantly becoming a household name in popular
culture. Years before this, though, she was already well-known and respected in legal circles
for consistently representing her clients with skill and success. The scope of her work ranges
from tackling social justice and human rights issues to representing several multinational
corporations in their negotiations and court actions regarding government regulation. As of
2015, she is a barrister—one type of legal representative in British courts—at London-based
Doughty Street Chambers. Amal Clooney was born as Amal Alamuddin on February 3, 1978,
in Beirut, Lebanon. Since Lebanon was in the midst of a the deadly Lebanese Civil War
during that time, her family moved to London when Amal was two years old. Amal was
raised in the Sunni Muslim faith. She has three siblings: her sister, Tala, as well as two half-
brothers via her father's previous marriage, Samer and Ziad. Her pre-college education came
at Dr. Challoner's High School. She attended New York University School of Law beginning
in 2001 and graduated with a Masters in Laws degree. Amal worked for 3 years for Sullivan
& Cromwell in New York City on cases representing Enron and Arthur Andersen, among
others.
