Tag: entrepreneur

Praveen Sharma, Business Head at Interactive Media on opting for LL.B after MBA
Praveen Sharma is a Commerce and an MBA graduate from Kurukshetra University. Right after his MBA he opted for an LL.B from Delhi University and graduated as a lawyer in 2013. Most of you would know about CAClubIndia.com, LawyersClubIndia.com and MBAClubIndia.com; Praveen is the Business Head of Marketing & Partnership of Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd., the company which runs these famous websites.

Praveen tells us about:
- Opting for LL.B as a professional requirement after an MBA
- The formidable mix of LL.B + MBA
- Work as a Business Head at Interactive Media
- Utility of online legal courses juxtaposed with the 3 year LL.B
Please introduce yourself to the readers? Please tell us a little bit about your childhood and your background?

I’m a traveller, sketcher, stage actor and a football enthusiast who believes that in life “knowing what you don’t want to do is more important than knowing what you want to”. My father was in the Indian Airforce. I was born in Srinagar where he was then posted. Originally from Jind, Haryana, my childhood was spent in Pune and teenage days lived in Ambala. After MBA I pursued LL.B from Delhi University and since then I am in Delhi. Since my childhood days, I am a keen observer of people and nature. Travelling helped me to build my skill of observation & correlation. Currently I am the Business Head of Marketing & Partnership at Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd (CAclubindia.com, LAWyersclubindia.com and MBAclubindia.com)

Being a Commerce graduate and having an MBA from Kurukshetra University, how did you decide to pursue legal studies? What motivated you to choose law after MBA?

Hunger of diversification motivated me. My interest areas are varied and the yearning to learn more every day whether it is through experience or academia is always present. Marketing and Legal subjects were always my favourite and so I decided sometime during my schooling that I will pursue both. My inclination towards law and MBA was inspired by my dad who is also both – a law graduate as well as a MBA. I find marketing an expressive and creative medium while law is fascinating and insightful. I believe both if combined make an extremely attractive and great combination of skills.

How was your experience studying LL.B from Delhi University? Being a marketing professional how did you manage to take out time for such an intensive course?

It was rattling, versed and insightful. Delhi University has its own way of treating things. You will find dramatic political scenario during DUSU elections, debate sessions near tea stalls, Haryanvi tea talks and moot court competitions simultaneously. Everything is so self-driven there. Students are mature and faculties are wonderful and make all efforts to justify the course syllabus. Despite the lack of modern infrastructure, I guess the people who teach and study there make the environment conducive to a holistic education. In evening class you will find people from different background like CAs, IPS-IAS officers, CS, finance and HR professionals who come there to study law. So you can imagine the level of diversity in one class room for one single objective of studying law. Every single individual has different reason and angle of seeing the particular subject of law – imagine how interesting that is!

As for time, my boss (Mr. Vivek Jain) has always been very supportive, especially during the course and yes, thanks to Delhi metro which made it possible for me to travel 60 km a day on time. When you have passion for something and desire of doing that you find a way to get it done.

You joined Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd., as a Senior Marketing Manager while you were pursuing Law in 2011. Please tell us how did this appointment take place?

After attaining Management degree, I quit 4 jobs in 2 months, including a campus placement and a job in a PSU. I was reading about some legal topic on the web and found “LAWyersclubindia” link there. I explored the website and it was quite helpful. I joined the website and then sent my CV in careers. After a week I got a call from Interactive Media that the founder wants to meet me for an interview. Initially though reluctant, I went ahead and gave the interview. The meeting was scheduled, I reached there and later Vivek (founder & CEO) came in – a 27 year old, young entrepreneur. We had a long discussion/interview at the end of which he asked me to send a small write-up on the company. I did that and same day got a call confirming my immediate joining. Initially I joined simply to meet my expenses, soon I started getting loads of opportunities to cultivate my skills and learn more- the advantages of working in a start up venture. Vivek trusted me and here I am today.

Please introduce Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd. to our readers. What are the main focus areas, and who form your target clientele?

Interactive media is a company having three brands (websites) i.e. CAclubindia.com, LAWyersclubindia.com and MBAclubindia.com, these connect more than 1.7 million finance, legal and management professionals. By the end of 2015 we hope to reach out to more than 2 million professionals. Our ideology is to connect users, specifically professionals, to provide a platform to share, exchange and distribute knowledge amongst the fraternity. The registration is free of cost for all and anyone can contribute to the community.

We have also introduced e-learning classes (asynchronous mode) with CCI Online Classes on CAclubindia.com in 2012, followed by LCIlexlearn on LAWyersclubinia.com and MCI learning corner on MBAclubindia.com in 2014. Currently more than 15,000 students are enrolled with us across the globe. The main focus area of e-learning classes is to provide value addition certificate courses at affordable price for our members.

We get some revenue to maintain running cost from our ad sales and our clientele include some of the financial and legal giants like KPMG, CIMA, ACCA, Thomson Reuters, Becker, Microsoft, Intuit, NIIT etc.

Being the Business Head of both Marketing & Partnership at Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd. what kind of responsibilities revolve around your job and what kind of activities do you undertake?

I am primarily responsible for building business partnerships, strategic alliances and branding & marketing of all three portals and sub-brands. I am also involved in new product development & projection strategies. I represent our company on various platforms and am involved in career counselling, motivational and technical seminars, conducting interviews of stalwarts & taking live hangouts. I also take up training classes of the sales and editorial team of the in-house employees & freelancers. In a nutshell my responsibilities revolve around exploring, strategizing & executing the new horizons for various alliances & partnerships and undertaking the holistic marketing activities for a DotCom and e-learning company.

How does your knowledge in law help you in your current work profile? How do you think knowing law can help an entrepreneur?

My studying law has given me a huge advantage at work. Firstly, we have a website ‘LAWyersclubindia.com’, so it’s easy for me to understand and support operational activities on the website. Secondly, we do lots of partnerships with Indian and foreign entities, my education gave me insight and perception to understand the agreements properly, to negotiate fairly, and to be able to ensure that there are no loopholes which might result in our loss and at the same time taking care of the rights and interests of the other party. It also makes it easy for me to handle technical queries and address them effectively.

As we are a dot-com company and deal with immense user generated content and so we have to deal with copyright related issues, IT laws on content sharing, user terms and conditions etc. When you have one or two lawyers in your team you can be confident while dealing with such issues.

Whereas in e-learning we deal with content from third party so Intellectual Property Right comes into the play here. My law background helps me to understand and deal with such issues and gain confidence over partners. Thus, having the basic education in law has given me an immense advantage.

As knowing finance is a must for entrepreneurs so is basics of law which directly affects their business. Understanding the related laws help an entrepreneur to make new product development strategy or starting a new partnership or venture. It also gives insight in making a marketing policy. New budding entrepreneurs coming up with startups and running SMEs must learn the basics of law and related laws to their business.

I believe that every individual should have basic education with regard to their rights and duties. For example laws related to protection against domestic violence, rape, road accident. Laws related to insurance, rights of a minor and more. This helps an individual to exercise their rights and get a broader view of the issue at hand. It helps society to mature as a whole. And a matured society develops faster and remains culturally stable.

How do you think this formidable mix of MBA and LL.B can help people working in a similar profile? Would you recommend Management and Marketing professionals to learn the law?

MBA+LLB is a great combination. It helps you develop a unique skill set which enables you to mitigate complex business situations by understanding the legal issues related to the situation and taking the managerial approach to solve the problem. It gives you an advantage over your peers. You become aware of the power of words and use it advantageously. There are great career options available in the industry requiring the blended skill set of these two degrees. For example: legal consultancy, social networking, content marketing, legal journalism, business consultancy and many more. I strongly recommend management and marketing professionals to learn law.

I take care of social media marketing for our brands. Now, I should be well versed with cyber laws, IT and social media laws because I need to deal with related issues in my day to day work. So, one can do small courses to have a better understanding of the areas which deals with his/her job profile.

If there were any part-time online diplomas in Business Laws awarded by one of the top law schools, like the one from NUJS and iPleaders, would you have taken it up?

Certainly yes! We need to take a pragmatic approach and undertake such certificate and diploma courses to enhance our corporate skills. It is great option for the young graduates and for professionals who are unable to attend full time college due to time and geographical constraints. Online courses are very popular these days and if such diploma course is there online or in my city which gives me flexibility of attending classes I would love to do such course. This kind of certificate/diploma course will have the industry acceptance and it will impart you with updated knowledge and skills.

What are your long term plans? Do you consider getting into a mainstream legal career ever?

Mainstream legal career, do you mean litigation? 😀

Whenever you see shows likes Suits, Boston Legal, The Practice, etc. you feel that urge to go into the court house, argue there and win the case with your charming and witty arguments. But frankly, I am quite satisfied with my current job, I love my job and what I get to do. It gives me the space to think out of the box and come up with new things while letting me stay connected to law. I work on numerous projects at the same time, and there is never a dull moment.

My long term plan is to be happy and enjoy my work… whatever I choose to do or not to do.

What would be your message to marketing and management professionals who are thinking of taking up legal studies?

You have to have love for this profession and desire to learn law. Only then you will be able to use the acquired knowledge properly, to grow intellectually, to help others and to share knowledge.

Marketing and management professionals should definitely study laws which are directly related to their job profile & business. In general also they should have basic legal understanding. For example if you are a social media manager you must understand copyright laws, Social media laws, cyber laws etc. Finally, the core competency for us is to be able to think and work in diverse situations. So it is a must to know something about everything. Don’t be scared to diversify.

काममयएवायंपुरुषइति। सयथाकामोभवतितत्क्रतुर्भवति।

यत्क्रतुर्भवतितत्कर्मकुरुते। यत्कर्मकुरुतेतदभिसंपद्यते॥

You are what your deep, driving desire is

As your desire is, so is your will

As your will is, so is your deed

As your deed is, so is your destiny!
December 17, 2014
Suhas Baliga, Principal at Innove Law, on quitting Law Firms and starting up
Mr. Suhas Baliga graduated from NLSIU, Bangalore in 2008. He thereafter joined Luthra and Luthra and then moved on to Trilegal. His work at law firms spanned a time period of almost 4 years. Thereafter he moved on to co-found Impact Law Ventures in 2012. In June 2014, he started up with Innove Law which focuses on investment and corporate advice to seed, early stage and growth-stage companies, with a team of three associates.

We asked him to share his deep insights on:
- Life at a Law School
- Building up a firm clientele
- Challenges of setting up a law firm on one’s own
Tell us a bit about your childhood and pre-college life as well as educational background. Did you have lawyers in your family?

No. I haven’t had any lawyers in my family as such. Is it helpful to have lawyers in the family? Yes. But at the same time it is not necessary. You can also bring in lawyers into the family by marrying into one! The more difficult part of becoming a lawyer can be setting up a law practice from ground up. I wasn’t brave but had the initial good fortune of working in a firm which paid its associates well and which did not privilege family background but this is not the case with law firms in general. There is some preference for families not because we are a feudal country but because the way law firms are organised and ownership is structured, it favours closely held ownership and management, though things are changing. I never imagined myself to be a lawyer. It was a matter of chance that I went to law school. I was surprised and taken aback since that was the only law school entrance exam that I took while looking forward to engineering since that was something everybody did in Karnataka at that time. In hindsight I am happy I didn’t follow the herd.

So did you prepare for a career in technology or medical before that?

I did not ever think there is only one path. It is more of a question of what I found interesting at every point of time. Apart from being interested in politics, I was interested in pure sciences. In fact when I was in my 12^th, I was either watching the news or studying physics. Because in science there were other subjects to study like biology and chemistry I used to enjoy what I used to do.

What made you gravitate towards the study of law at NLS? Was it planned or just a matter of chance?

NLS turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I was happy that I wasn’t doing engineering like everyone else and doing something different there. The fact that it was an Arts course where there was history and economics was fun. I always liked reading and writing and this aspect of the course was especially attractive. When I joined NLS it used to have a good public law focus. It used to have three constitutional law courses and three political science courses – I think the arts and public law aspects of law courses have great value in moulding an all-round lawyer. A strong grounding in constitutional law, administrative law and arts subjects also makes for a better corporate lawyer given its influence on legal and regulatory issues in general.

Was the shift from science to BA.LL.B difficult?

Not really. I remember having my first class at NLS where the professor was talking about a ball which was hit by a cricket bat and it fell outside and landed on the head of a fan in the audience, I found it all very flimsy. After calculus and thermodynamics, it seemed pretty thin. Also what puzzled me is that people used to make notes on these things! I never felt the subjects to be extremely challenging although I found some law subjects fascinating, especially where they intersected with arts subjects or where they are grounded in first principles, such as jurisprudence, criminal law, law of trusts, contract and transfer of property. Even after my 3rd year in college I wasn’t sure of doing law. I worked on a literary magazine for the college and everybody knew me as someone who writes and not someone dribbled in the professional life of law. Although I was sad when I was graduating because of not having extremely high grades, I was happy to have used the five years of college to explore varied interests and passions. In my own way at my own pace that was the best thing about college. In hindsight, I feel I took education like education should be taken. If you were to ask me, at the same time I did not take to everything about law school. I found certain aspects mundane, such as “mooting” and debates, even though a large part of my work today involves negotiating, presenting and having conversations with real people.

Law school can be monotonous at times. What different things did you do these five years at NLS?

I picked up on certain interests I had before but the law school culture certainly played a part by exposing new avenues to explore them, be it music, movies, theatre, women (!), books. There was much to do. I did participate in things recognizing that college is that period of life where you build relationships both professional/personal and expand your mind and explore new ideas.

Grades certainly may be a significant criterion, yet ironically if an analysis is made between people who scored at the top of their class and their current state of affairs, the result might be surprising. Grades may give one a good push, probably a foreign law firm job but it is not going to make one’s career. In fact, as a lateral higher when you send an application I doubt your grades will be looked at very closely.

Tell us about your internships. Did you get any institutional support for internships from your college? Any remarkable internship experience which shaped up your career?

So as far as my internships were concerned, my idea was to broad base them and never to do the same thing twice. First year I interned with a newspaper, Second year I interned with Ramchandra Guha, Third year I interned with a litigator, and in my Fourth year I did a corporate internship and oddly it was then that I discovered some interest in the legal profession. My journey as a corporate lawyer started when I was with Lexygen in Bangalore. When I joined them in their first few months, there were only three lawyers there. Lexygen was an amazing place because there was this young team who were trying to build something big. They used to love doing what they were doing and continue to do so today.

Did you find that your law school education had prepared you sufficiently for the many tasks you were required to execute during your internship?

Absolutely not. In no way did law school prepare me for an internship. Most of the internships showed me that the work as a lawyer often has little to do with anything that I had studied at law school. One of the major criticisms of law schools today in the profession is that they hardly put any emphasis on analytical and critical reasoning. They don’t learn the method neither do graduating students have an eye for detail or focus on the outcome of what you are doing and what the practical aspects are. You learn some cases and principles and feel very intelligent but the moment there is a real situation before you, you do not know how to react. In India, law practice and academics have been divergent and much needs to be done to bridge this gap. The intersection between teachers and academicians in the university and practising lawyers and professionals is very limited.

What do you feel about the perception that students of certain ‘elite’ NLU’s have a much easier time in kick-starting their career as compared to law students from other colleges?

It shouldn’t ideally matter which law school you go to. The only difference that I see, not to blow my own horn, is that in NLS during my years, we had to do some 60 term papers out of which 30-40 were serious, so that amount of writing brings in some amount of practice on how to write. So I do give NLS due credit for teaching you how to write. Whether you learn it or not is a different matter. With a lot of other colleges also they have applied the same model but most of the writing they do are for their final exams. I think it is more of a question of rigour and how much work you end up doing and if you are required to do certain amount of work it pushes you to do that amount of work. I think the greatest difference between what is considered a good college like NLS and others are the networks. And that is the only sort of advantage and this is across the board in every industry. In IIM Ahmadabad, your juniors and seniors all of them are from IIM Ahmadabad. It is an old boys club that you can tap into later. And yes there may be a difference in kinds of the professors that you deal with and the kinds of courses that you take up. There were some amazing batch mates and professors during my time with whom I built amazing relationships with. So there are obviously many intangible advantages of going to a good college which may or may not have anything to do with the actual skills that you learn.

Like networking and alumni circle, basically?

It is not just about alumni, but also the people who come after you in the college and the ability to network across a bunch of lawyers. E.g. I was Roll no 1291. There were 1290 lawyers before me. And now it has come down to 1800 or 2000 or so. There were 2000 lawyers from my college which is not such a huge number and a lot of them were well dispersed across the profession. So now if I want reference in different firms it can be somebody from my college, or if I want to hire people I may send reference to them. So yes it is a network, but more importantly, in terms of your college also you have a residential environment where people engage with each other a lot which has a certain intrinsic value. It is an example of a soft advantage which may not be directly linked what an institution is bringing to them but it is more like an ecosystem wherein it allows people from different spheres to come across, get to know each other and build a professional network. In the long run however, your ability to build networks is dependent on the efforts you put in, and the longer you spend out in the profession the less important your alumni networks become.

So you may agree to the fact that it is more about the student community of the university and not directly linked to the university itself?

Yes, and that is unfortunate and it is not the ideal situation. The university should contribute to who you are. I am not saying that NLS did or didn’t but there indeed is a lot of scope for improvement, and this is the same thing with an LL.M too. I don’t think a LL.M degree from Harvard makes one a better lawyer as much as give you access to another network. I do not mean to in any way discount the exposure that comes from attending great institutions and taking courses seriously.

After graduating from NLSIU you directly joined Luthra & Luthra. How did the appointment take place? Tell us what a typical day at work was like for you?

So after my experience in Lexygen, Luthra & Luthra had picked me up for an internship. My internship went well and I liked everything about it. 2008 was a fantastic time, I was interviewed, and they offered me the job. It was a great year even for people like me who were at bottom of my class given that half of my class was taken up by foreign firms.

Once I joined Luthra and Luthra, I worked with the infrastructure, banking and finance practice. The first six months of Luthra were as or more challenging than five years of law school. Apart from hard work, having to learn very quickly, having to deal with clients, being in situations where you do not understand anything yet you are forced to understand. I was fortunate to have very smart people work with me and that was a fantastic thing to happen in the first year of your career. It was a great place to work at with a comfortable atmosphere and a fair degree of freedom to innovate and yet have high expectations. I used to deal with bureaucrats, anchors, policy issues and policy making, issues in terms of documentation for the infrastructure sector, how contracts should be modelled, high level discussions on how a project can be structured, and in an old fashioned way we learnt to read everything twice, be very thorough. It was also very broad based because there was the corporate side, the contract and commercial side, the legal and regulatory side. After 3 years I felt I needed a change, because I was doing a lot of things which I have done before and I wanted to explore new avenues.

Trilegal offered me a position in Bombay and ensured that I will have a good mix of work that I had done in the past and what I wanted to do. I was there only for a year so I can’t really judge though I wasn’t really particularly thrilled with the shift as Trilegal had very little work in my practice areas at the time and I wasn’t assigned a stable senior resource to work with. It was in my time there that the bug of enterprise bit me. When I got out of Trilegal, it was clear that I wanted to do something which builds on my experience. It has to innovate and has to be the result of the knowledge that I have inculcated from working with law practice. I also felt there was much that could be done better and decided to move towards setting up my own model.

You thereafter left Trilegal to start your own venture. What were your ideas while quitting Trilegal? What were the challenges you faced starting up with Policy Craft and Impact Law Ventures?

There was no idea honestly. Like I said my idea was to build on my past experiences and skills that I had like in corporate finance, debt and equity finance, project finance, and the various skill sets that I had, and also in terms of building some sort of regulatory practice in terms of being able to do more in research and analysis and advocacy. When I started out the first transaction that came to me, and started working with similar early stage investments, it was 2012 and the early stage market was picking up. In the course of 2012, I learnt what kinds you need to deal with and the kind of market for legal service there is and I think that was very useful when I started working with my partner, Pankaj.

After quitting Trilegal, there was one month where I borrowed money from my father. Unfortunately I had saved no money! I don’t really see it as a challenge but just me. I have been out on my own for two and a half years now and I see this as a lot less risky as opposed to working with a law firm. Over there, you tick one or two people off and you may just get fired. In a law practice where you serve clients, the relationship is more goal oriented and broad based. It may be risky to have a technology start-up but that is not the case with a law start-up. The latter is built on relationships with clients who trust you, which if maintained well are relationships for life.

You have worked at larger law firms earlier and then after starting your own firm do you feel the work/life balance has changed? Is it more comfortable be your own boss or is the pressure of work almost similar?

I understand bigger law firms better now that I have seen the business side of having run my own law firm. Most fresh corporate lawyers have an extreme sense of entitlement and typically don’t understand that law firms are a service provider and their clients are service recipients. When you think about the law firm model, or start your own firm, how to pay your employees etc, it gives you a greater insight into how a law firm works. People think if one becomes a corporate lawyer, then one has to draft documents, one would have to read this and that, which is like saying, if I become a Chef I would have to cut bananas! I think creating value for your clients using your abilities to the best you can is the most important.

So in this profession, if you think that there are some people who get work and some who will do the work, then it means that you don’t recognize that work involves handholding your clients apart from drafting their documents or advising them or giving them memos. I don’t think the way the profession is structured right now; you can really make the distinction and think you are one or the other. If you do you are running a risk. If you can only sell and can’t practise the law, or if you can only practise the law and not sell or manage, either way you would be putting yourself at risk. So ideally, there is no such thing as a rainmaker. There are good lawyers and there are bad lawyers.

Tell us a bit about your current occupation in Innove law.

One of the things I learnt in the last two and a half years is that there is a community in India that is looking at building businesses which are driven by innovation and explore completely new models, either in terms of technological base or processes or in terms of the kinds of services they are trying to provide to the populations they are trying to serve. A lot of these businesses that are today’s small or that are growing have very interesting entrepreneurs, investors, stakeholders who are trying to build something larger tomorrow and this is the client base that interests me and I feel that the number of people who are starting up or building new businesses, need to go up and they have to do businesses in India in a way that safeguards their interests. So a lot of work that I do and that we intend to do here, whether it is with the clients, or with the policy or regulatory side, is focused on serving this group. We do this by representing entrepreneurs when they are negotiating their investments, represent investors when they are investing, represent businesses when they are growing, give legal advice concerning strategic issues that start-up businesses face amongst other things. This is just a simple way to describe it.

Where do you see yourself in five to ten years down the line?

So there are two things, in terms of 5 years and Innove law, I would like to see that the clients that we are working with right now and the clients that come to us will grow and will help in pulling the firm along. In 10 years from now, I would like to see myself having published at least one book. It can be fiction or non-fiction. But everyday what drives me is that the people that I work with today own tomorrow. It is fantastic to see your client who was fresh out of college when you first represented him is running a 100 million dollar company. There is nothing like that.

What would be your advice to our readers who may be aspiring to start their own law firms one day?

My advice to them would be that from day one, build relationships with your clients and colleagues and work hard. Read everything that comes to your desk. Be imaginative.
December 14, 2014
Surabhi Modi on Clat Possible, CLAT 2015 and the mantra to successful entrepreneurship
Surabhi Modi is an outstanding Fulbright scholar from Delhi University. She is an ardent reader; research scholar in films and literature and a successful entrepreneur in the field of legal education. She is the managing director of Team Satyam, Clat Possible tutorials, which was conceived in Lucknow but is now a leading name in legal education and amongst tutorials nationwide.

Surabhi talks about:
- Her interests and journey as a scholar.
- Her entrepreneurship in the field of law and the success of Clat Possible.
- She discusses the viability of CLAT and her take on CLAT 2015.
- Her mantra to law students in the area of entrepreneurship
Please introduce yourself to the readers? Please tell us a little bit about your childhood and your background?

Introductions are most difficult I must admit. I’m an educational entrepreneur and erudite. I’m currently the managing director at Clat Possible, which I must proudly admit is India’s fastest growing law test prep brand, currently at number 2 in terms of volume in its very young existence of just 4 1/2 years. I love studying which explains the fact that I’m doing that still, I’m a research scholar in films and literature. I’ve graduated from Hindu College, DU and received a Fulbright Scholarship from UC Davis in 2009. I’m an avid reader and promote reading through a small Reading Café. I’m also a movie buff and screen films for my students. I’m planning to start small film appreciation courses at various colleges as well.

You have an exceptional background in English literature and have also been a recipient of the prestigious Fulbright scholarship. Tell us something about it.

The funny thing is that I started out as a science student. I was a very curious case of misplaced love towards subjects and wrong career counselling; which is why I make a good career counsellor as well!! But eventually I had the good sense of pursuing this subject professionally and taking it forward now that I’m doing my PhD on it. Because I have always been a reader right from my school days, I always got 90 + in high school and intermediate I was comfortably able to switch to English. I loved classics and gender studies even when I did not understand the terms; so I had introduced myself to Doris Lessing, Mahasweta Devi and these helped me in getting my scholarship.

Without much background, you decided to pursue your entrepreneurship in the field of law? What gravitated you towards law?

Frankly, we were earlier only into PG entrances like CAT etc, when my friend from NLSIU brought to us his venture for law entrances. I agreed to take it up just because he was my very good friend and then I did not read much into basic details like what is market size of this product etc. We started extremely small with 8 students. all wards of lawyers or judges. Then there was no CLAT, all law schools held their own exam and we only looked at NLS, NALSAR and NUJS and also NLIU. We sent at least 7 to the NLUs from the 8 that we taught. It didn’t make business sense but the kids were very bright and it was a happy change. Next year we enrolled 17 students and that year 2005 I was even getting married so my family imposed a curfew on me for 2 months and you won’t believe these kids started coming instead to be taught by me. Now that really endeared us to this product and here we are today 4000 students plus and yet all very dear to us.

Our passion is only fuelled further with the love these kids give us, for example this interview was requested by my very dear student Gargi. So each of us at CP would go the extra mile for these students, who in turn reciprocate our love and care. We are not perceived as coaching wala but as friends and mentors and that’s my most prominent achievement. I’ve successfully broken the traditional ‘coaching’ mould.

You are a founding member of Clat Possible. Please tell us about ClatPossible and its verticals. With so much of competition existing in the coaching and teaching field, tell us about your journey with Clat Possible so far.

So I think I got carried away in the last question and really did answer it there, now that I see it had asked me only about how I started. Sadly, brevity surely is not my talent.

In your opinion, what makes Clat Possible different from its peers?

As I had mentioned earlier, which I reiterate; CP is not just a coaching centre. It has become (thanks to my supremely talented and highly qualified team) a mentorship program. The real reason being that each one of us has voluntarily opted for this career leaving behind great careers if I may say so or rather acceptable careers in mainstream education (which is me), FMCG sector (Satyam Sahai, Founder after his MBA) and my other colleagues who have come from Amarchand, Luthra etc. So our job doesn’t end at teaching reasoning, we help the children grow and gain confidence.

We screen movies, hold talks on books, engage them in a parliamentary debate, hold mock parliaments, summits, policy summits. Now how these exercises one might ask are relevant to CLAT? Well, they are. The research involved would eventually help them in GK. A film might help them with language and their EQ and everything is relevant for learning which should be liberal and not skewed. Most of my colleagues are very well read and are national level debaters, researchers and mooters. Now that team can just not sit and teach a syllabus in a pedantic mould. Honestly most of us will die if we do not innovate and you see our results which are living examples of how are innovation and maverick style has helped do many students successfully join law schools and with such aplomb they are carrying themselves there. So we don’t just give the NLUs we provide them with confident students.

Do you provide any work opportunities for law students? Do you recruit undergraduate law students as part time faculty?

Not just part time- we are regular on the place com and recruit NLU talent for various roles where teaching is only one!! There is R & D, operations, franchise management, HR and even opportunities at business partnership. We are a regular firm with a proper hierarchy and roles.

What are your views on CLAT and its viability and standard as an entrance exam for premier law schools in India?

CLAT is a decent exam but has a lot of underutilized potential. Its undoing if ever there will be would be the fact that it is fraught with errors and ad hocism. It still needs a structure which needs to be followed sanctimoniously. There are also many question types to it that are obsolete and need revision. I really loved the question papers that came when there was no CLAT. Each law school had good questions and really did test aptitude in the true sense of the word. If CLAT could revert to that kind of questioning the exam would get into an international league.

CLAT 2015 is most likely going to be Online; how do you think students should get themselves prepared for an online exam?

The basic fundamental learning would not change. The only difference would come in in the platform where the paper would be supplanted by the screen. A much easier option I tell you. A computer based test is a very convenient thing for both the organisers as well as the students (if they are comfortable with on screen reading). Anyway nothing is sure now but it will happen one day for sure. As it removes a lot of hassle of printing and exam leakage and even costs.

The students just have to practice a lot of taking exams from screens. They need a good interface and a great test engine to give them real time experience. But as I said the fundamental prep remains the same. We are now giving all handouts also on the student account of CP and the students have an option of writing both the mocks and other practice tests online. So there has to be loads of practice of sitting on the computer for more than two hours and continual reading with unwavering attention. Maybe aside from test taking students read their newspapers and magazines online to help them get into the momentum. Even books, good time to go Kindle.

Being a law and CLAT mentor, any advice to students preparing themselves to give the CLAT exam and entering into law schools.

The single most relevant advice to all CLAT aspirants and even otherwise is; start reading newspapers. Most of your career woes will end there. All issues regarding learning good English, GK, reading, concentration and even reading speed will enhance. So I’m not asking for the moon. It is just a small life style change from not reading the newspaper to reading one. After you’re done just come to CP and you’ll be mentored so thoroughly that an NLU would just be one of the benefits.

What are the prime hurdles that a non-lawyer entrepreneur has to come across?

In the lawyer world? None. Infact you are trusted more for the fact that you are not a liar….. sorry lawyer. Ha ha. But really none. And maybe that can be attributed to the fact that lawyers are a discerning people and when they see talent they respect it. I’m friends with so many lawyers and judges now, even VCs who appreciate my work, who want to work with me or who entrust me with the career of their wards.

What does it take to be an entrepreneur? What are the three great skills of an entrepreneur according to you? What differentiates the best and the rest?

Entrepreneurship is a big word and is even taught as a subject in B Schools. And I have no formal training in it which is just as well. Whatever I know today, I know from experience and more so from the whip learning from my husband who as the word goes is most intolerant of any shoddy work on my part. But yes, I’ve learnt a lot, had my share of struggles and now I can say each entrepreneurship experience is as unique as your DNA. Nonetheless it has some essential ingredients which from my experience I believe are:
- Leading from example
- Eye for detail
- Knowing when to delegate
And they are in their order of priority. Till date I have no qualms about doing ground sales, waiting for meeting principals and clients for hours each time we open our centre in a new city, eventually to be turned down or getting no audience with that principal. I have to do these things still because I know I do them best, I have resilience and also I’m the best sales pitch in the company. Now no one on my sales team can err or give up because they see me. I do not sit on a high chair saying it’s below me to meet individual clients and schools. As an MD and mentor most VCs welcome me and/or invite me and I have respect in my circles but the moment I become the business woman I get my share of ‘please come another day, the principal is busy.’ The beauty lies in this irony. I’m invited a judge or chairperson for a debate by the same institutes who would later reject my proposal. Yes, there is a marketing team and a sales team but we all work together. Every new city sees me as the first face and we move on.

Lastly, what would be your message to law students and young lawyers who want to pursue entrepreneurship?

Please do so by all means, contact me at surabhi@clatpossible.com and let’s become entrepreneurs. It definitely has its shares of lows but then what doesn’t. but the sense of achievement the first 1000/- bucks you earn gives you may not come from the 1 lakh salary. Abstract as it may seem in thought it is just as tangible in experience. The joys of entrepreneurship are cathartic, however one should be ready to sweep one’s own room, shine the plate that says MD and then sit with aplomb in the room and play MD.
September 29, 2014
Harsh Gagrani, Director, LegalEdge, on being author, entrepreneur, and lawyer
Harsh graduated from NLIU, Bhopal, in 2011. He is the director of LegalEdge Tutorial. He also recently authored The Pearson Guide to the CLAT.

We asked him about:
- Starting up on his own with LegalEdge
- His advice to law students who couldn’t make it to top NLUs
- On CLAT 2015 and writing The Pearson Guide to the CLAT
Kindly acquaint us with your college life and your aspirations in college.

Studying in NLIU was one of the most profound experiences of my life so far. It helped me break out of my comfort zone, and hone my basic skills as a person. The students in NLIU are the chosen best from across the country, and my illusion of being at a higher pedestal in a few activities I have always been good at (quizzing, writing) were shattered right in the first trimester. Thankfully, leaving my comfort zone helped me prepare for the bigger battles I face every day now.

As for other activities, as ironic as it may sound, I was never into anything that involved speaking (moots, debates et al), even though I’m a teacher now! I experimentally wrote an article for a website in the first year, and got seriously hooked to writing. Over the next few years, I wrote and got published close to a dozen articles, winning a couple of essay competitions on the way. Somehow, and this goes against popular wisdom, mooting never gave me the high that a publication did.

Any fond memories which you would want to share with our readers related to your days in law school?

A couple of them actually. The first was the publication of my first article, on a pretty obscure website. The article, when I read it today, seems like a complete piece of trash. Even a website publication barely added any value to my CV. But more importantly, it got me started and developed my fascination towards writing, which has helped me to this day.

The second, astonishingly, would be the moment when I decided against going for a job and starting my own venture immediately after graduating. In my final year, I did sit for placements and sadly (read: thankfully), got through none. As the end of college life was approaching, I had casually decided upon starting my own venture, but half-heartedly sat for placements to gain ‘work-ex’ of a few years, as that’s what the conventional wisdom said. Not getting through the placements came as an eye-opener for me, and I re-evaluated my plans. Luckily, my peers and family supported my fanatical plan of starting the venture without any experience. It has worked well for me so far.

What motivated you to start Legal Edge Tutorials?

As I’ve already stated, I zeroed in on starting my venture sometime in my final year. However, I was entirely clueless as to what I would start. I toyed with a few ideas, all of them requiring some prior experience, which I lacked. This included starting an e-commerce company (with absolutely no tech experience), starting an Indianized version of SSRN (if anyone is interested, I’m still game!), a virtual stock exchange (seemed promising then, seems absurd now) etc. I researched on all these ideas, met people, prepared business plan, spoke to interested parties and conveniently shelved the idea, seeing a lot of pitfalls in all of them.

The idea of starting a law test prep coaching was given by a good friend. Bhopal had matured well as a go-to destination for law aspirants from all over India, and regretfully, the feigned best in coaching business still yielded highly dissatisfied aspirants. We saw an opportunity and started working towards it. Luckily, we didn’t have much time to ponder over the idea and finalize business plans, as the ideal time to launch batches was already around the corner, or I’m sure I would have shelved this idea also. We set the ball rolling and launched within a month of writing our last examination in NLIU.

What makes Legal Edge Tutorials different from its peers?

The competition in CLAT prep industry, especially in Bhopal, is very tense. The city already has old guards maintaining their presence, brands spreading their presence and new players establishing their presence. Luckily, we’ve been able to carve a niche for ourselves. Why we’re different? I’ll deviate from clichés like ‘personalised attention’ and ‘best infrastructure’ and get straight to the point:
- We never compromise on faculty, which in my humble opinion, is the single most important determinant of any student’s success.
- Extremely high focus on developing great content. The content we give to the classroom students has been regenerated to develop best-selling books, twice.
- New modes of learning. I take close to 30 internal current affairs quizzes in a session, we regularly take newspaper reading and magazine reading sessions and conduct tons of inter-batch competitions. All these activities play a major role in getting even a disinterested student involved in the learning process, by making the process more fun and exciting.
Also, while we’re growing rapidly and trying to establish presence in various cities, we try not losing sight of the importance of our job. Students and parents trust us blindly. They swear by us in choosing what exams to take, what colleges to go for, what books to refer to and the like. These decisions potentially make or break careers. The constant realization of this incalculable responsibility, and the delicateness with which we try to deal with the same, truly differentiates us from the peers.

Five years from now, where do you see Legal Edge Tutorials?

A student I taught in the first year of LegalEdge, who missed securing a seat in National Law Schools by measly three marks, recently came up to me and told me that he is now preparing for UPSC. The habits he had developed while studying at LegalEdge, especially the reading habit, speed reading tricks and fascination towards subjects like GK, has been with him ever since. He says it has vastly helped him in his preparation for other examinations.

I’d like LegalEdge to replicate this for thousands of students over the next five years. Opening more franchisees and expanding our presence is a given, but I’d like LegalEdge to be an experience of a lifetime for students.

Do you think CLAT scores are truly indicative of a student’s potential?

We’ve been lucky enough to have hundreds of students every year who work to their full potential and give CLAT their best shot. However, due to the very nature of competitive examinations, not every student, and not even every brilliant student, necessarily cracks a good National Law School.

Message to those students- I’ve seen most of the non-National Law Schools, especially the newer ones, working even harder than National Law Schools to establish their presence. They get the best competitions organized, liaison with established authorities to deliver lectures in the college and connect with the students, devise a strict curriculum, help the students in getting internships and try hiring great faculties on a regular basis. If you haven’t cracked a National Law School but are lucky enough to be part of such a college, you’ve got pretty much everything a good college has to offer, National or otherwise. Be proactive. Participate in multifarious activities. Establish a good network. If you waste the fantastic opportunities coming down your way, the blame for failures later on in your life should then be reserved only for yourself and not your college.

CLAT 2015 is probably going to be online; how do you think students should get themselves prepared for an online exam?

The whole hullabaloo of CLAT going online has been due to an interview which the Vice-Chancellor of RMLNLU (CLAT 2015’s conducting authority) gave sometime in June, 2014. Since the official notification isn’t yet out, I’d suggest against going for online mocks for now. The notification, clarifying the online conduction of CLAT, should be out by November. Students at any level of their preparation would then have sufficient time to go for online mocks, and acclimatize themselves with this completely different test taking pattern. Till then, I’d say stick with offline mocks.

Do you provide any work opportunities for law students?

As a matter of practice, we do not hire undergrad law students as faculty. We’ve been fortunate to have some great NLIU, Bhopal alumni as faculty, including Kapil Duggal (’14 Batch), Swapnil Verma (’10 Batch), Shreya Dua (’14 Batch) and Shivendu Joshi (’11 Batch). However, we’ve hired some really good undergrad students in the content development team from five to six National Law Schools, with some of them working with us since the past three years now.

Please tell our readers, when and how you decided to write a book.

Sometime during the end of our first year, we realized that our Current Affairs section was becoming extremely popular among students, when we received dozens of inquiries for the same in a short span of time. It was then that I decided to compile the questions in the form of a book. Since we had most of the content, it didn’t take us much time to release the book. About 500 copies of the book were printed, which were sold out in a month’s time, about 90% of them only in Bhopal. It was then that I realized this big gap in CLAT preparation guide market.

I sent a few copies of my first books to about a dozen good publishing houses, of which Pearson and Macmillan replied. After the initial contract was signed, it took close to nine months for our team to deliver the content and come out with this 700-pages long CLAT guide. We’ve been fortunate enough to get rave reviews about the book from students, teachers and the publishers alike. Work on second edition of this book has already begun and it should be released sometime in January.

How is writing a book different from writing a blog?

Flexibility is what differentiates the blog writing experience from the book writing one. A blog can be written to cater to the needs of different target markets within the same segment. This doesn’t necessarily apply to the book writing experience. Which brings us to the point of aspects to be considered while writing a book. In my humble opinion, they are as follows:

Define your target market neatly: A book meant for all is a book meant for none. An author should always decide beforehand an ideal reader for whom the book will prove to be a boon, and ignore everyone else. My book is primarily meant for students at the beginning of their preparation journey.

Giving a strong answer to the ‘why’ question of buying your book: Think about the strongest reason why would you want your potential reader to buy your book over others. While working on the book, stay true to that reason. In our case, it was highly original questions. It sure took us much more time, but the effectiveness of the end product made it worth the efforts.

On requiring external help: In my opinion, bringing more people on board helps in churning out a much better work than working alone. However, don’t lose sight of the second point (staying true to the reason) while deciding upon the people to include on your work.

What does it take to be an entrepreneur?

Even more than the guts to start and invest, being an entrepreneur involves guts to carry on when the tides aren’t exactly in your favour. There are times when even your closest ones don’t really believe you can make it big. The self-belief shown during those times can sometimes make all the difference. Other than perseverance, here is a list of three most important skills an entrepreneur must possess:

Not compromising – Each business has at least one aspect which cannot be compromised, come what may. In coaching industry, this aspect is hiring great faculty. Infrastructure, material, other staff, location et al can all be compromised on and a prep centre can still work like charm, only if the quality of teachers is not compromised, though it is never the other way round. An entrepreneur should start his venture keeping in mind this uncompromisable aspect of his business.

Seeing the Bigger Picture – This is primarily what differentiates a follower from the one being followed. An entrepreneur should be able to see through the daily clutter the business generates, and broaden his horizons as far as possible. Business book E-Myth Revisited summarizes this aptly, “Work on the business, not in it”.

Ability (and willingness) to toughen up – Being a new entrant in the industry, we’ve screwed up the way any new venture does. But I’ve always made sure we face even our critics as they help us improve in a way a satisfied customer can never do. Actively solicit reviews to products and services, and have the courage to face the negative ones as well. They’ll help you improve beyond imagination.

Lastly, what would be your message to law students and young lawyers who want to pursue entrepreneurship?

Legal Entrepreneurship took its time to take off but has now certainly left its nascent stage. We’ve seen some great ventures taken up by law students/graduates in the past half a decade, including iPleaders, Lawctopus, CLATapult and LiveLaw. Here’s the message to budding entrepreneurs of legal sector:

Start soon, and start with something small. A blog. A YouTube channel (and keep updating it with relevant stuff), a social organization, a website to help CLAT aspirants (Joking! We already have quite a lot of those). You got the point.

Find a mentor. You’ll find people who have been there, done that, in every field. Connect with them. You’ll learn bucketful of relevant things with every conversation you have with them.

Do it for profits. There, I said the unspeakable. Take up a venture for the profits. Don’t make it your primary purpose, but don’t ignore it either. Profits are like oxygen for any venture. A venture should not be existing solely for profits, but in absence of profits, it’ll die down soon. The problem is that I see a lot of initiatives coming up with no definite profitability plan even after many years. They start-up for the sake of starting-up. Unless you don’t make profits as one of the purposes of starting-up, your motivation will die down soon and the venture will appear like a liability, serving you and your customers no good.

Final message- If you’ve been thinking about starting up, do it. Right now. Not after graduating. Not next month or next week. Start anything up right now. It doesn’t have to be big (it cannot be at this stage, anyway). But it’ll kick-start your entrepreneurship journey and prepare you for handling bigger ventures. And let’s connect if you need any help!
September 8, 2014
Suveer Bajaj, Co-founder, FoxyMoron, on Digital Marketing, law, and plans for the future
Suveer Bajaj pursued LL.B. from the University of Mumbai, batch of 2012. Prior to that, he had pursued his BMS in Marketing. He is the founding partner of FoxyMoron, a Digital Marketing Company, which is mainly functioning from New Delhi and Mumbai. The company has eminent clients like The L’Oreal Group, Bacardi India, Castrol, Fosters, The Cadbury Group, Asian Paints, The World Wide Media Group, AXN India, VIP Industries, Rajasthan Royals, Quikr and has nine offices between New Delhi and Mumbai.

In this interview we speak to him about:
- The switch from law to marketing
- Essentials for being a successful marketeer.
- The mechanism behind the rapid growth of FoxyMoron.
What motivated you to pursue law?

Law was always the first option for me from an academic perspective right from the time I was old enough to decide what I wanted to study. It definitely wasn’t a virtue of chance. It was a well-educated decision; one I had actually been looking forward to for quite a while before I actually even started studying law.

How would you describe the chronicles of your college life?

I always kept myself active and busy through my college days. I started working literally one week after I got out of school. I actively participated in a number of college activities including the Rotaract club, represented my college in almost every inter-collegiate festival and went on to creating a Model UN session for my college which at the time, was the largest college level MUN in Mumbai. I interned actively through my summers and eventually started FoxyMoron in the summer of 2008 after I completed my second year of degree college. This required me to pull odd hours and double up on both my academic and social life, but I was more than happy to make the sacrifice while in college.

Tell us about your experience as a Space Intern of the renowned newspaper Indian Express.

I interned with the Indian Express Group in the summer of 2007, which was my first summer in degree college. I worked under the direct mentorship under the (then) General Manager of Space Marketing, also known as ad sales. I learned the ropes of how ad sales were done and actively worked with all teams to understand how the dynamic of print advertising works with various departments. It was my first formal interaction with sales targets, corporate discounts and the IRS. We whiled away our lunch breaks at the art room watching how tediously the art directors created the lovely print ads we see in newspapers today.

What are the essential ingredients to become a successful marketer?

There is an age old saying: Sales and Marketing go hand in hand. Neither comes first and neither comes second. In order to understand the ethos of marketing, I think it is important for a good marketer to step out of the grid and start understanding a client’s business objectives as opposed to restricting his horizon to merely a client’s advertising or communication objectives. A good marketer must know how to ad value to his client to extent that he becomes an integral part of the client’s business and thereby becomes indispensable to the business life cycle. Good marketing is always object oriented and resolution led.

How do you think knowing law benefits an entrepreneur?

Sound legal knowledge can help any person in any walk of life. Especially whilst doing business. For instance, in the case of FoxyMoron, my legal knowledge assisted me in drafting my initial partnership agreement and leave and license agreement. At a very young age, we were in a position to understand business risk and could therefore account for its protection. An understanding of company law ensured that as an organization, we were compliant with the various different aspects of “business.” By virtue of the industry that we function in, an introduction to Intellectual Property Law helped in ensuring that our creatives were royalty-managed. All in all, from a business structuring and risk assessment perspective, understanding the law has really assist in the speedy growth of our organization. It has ensured that our growth has been rapid and we haven’t been slowed down by heavy law firms. It has ensured that we create an environment in which we are well aware of our rights and responsibilities and can function independently as empowered entrepreneurs.

How did you choose your co-founder?

The birth of FoxyMoron was a joint decision that we all made collectively. We were all friends well before we started working together.The best advice I can offer people who are looking forward to collaboration with friends is to learn how to keep your personal and professional lives apart. Remember, that by day, you are colleagues, but by night, you are still friends and will still socialize together. Work must never compromise a friendship and neither must a friendship compromise work.

What are the prime hurdles that a non-lawyer entrepreneur has to come across?

One of the prime hurdles that a non-lawyer entrepreneur may have to overcome is insolence due to naivety. It is common with most people that do not know the law to be intimidated by it. It is even more common for people who do not know the law to be taken advantage of, whether commercially or in spirit. Business houses have large legal departments and are often represented by big firms across the company. This by itself can be intimidating. Legal understanding helps put entrepreneurs at par with larger organizations in terms of negotiation. It enables entrepreneurs to understand the extents of their rights and therefore enables them (us) to empower themselves.

Tell us about your journey with FoxyMoron so far.

Our journey has been fabulous. We started with just the four of us, with four laptops, with no seed capital, in my bed room. It’s been six long and fun years and we have grown to a family of over 200 with nine offices between Bombay and Delhi. We represent some of the country’s biggest consumer brands and are powered by a young, talented, enthusiastic bunch of twenty-something year olds that are determined to change the digital landscape in India. Our work has gotten us recognition across the world and has received several awards and accolades. Business has grown organically; both in size and scale. It has been a joyous journey, salt and peppered with a lot of ups and downs, a lot of hurdles, sacrifices and compromised.

What kind of internships would be beneficial for law students who want to pursue entrepreneurship?

For any students who want to pursue entrepreneurship, the best kind of internships are in start-ups. In a start-up, one is made to do literally everything. The exposure that one gains from working in a startup is unmatched. The experience of watching and contributing to the growth, structure and sustainability of a business is what shapes many vocational choices in life. The fact that you will interact personally with top management, the fact that you will do work that isn’t only limited to data entry, the fact that you might have the opportunity to walk into a meeting with a CEO of your client’s company. The journey of a start-up is un-paralleled.

How did you get to work with such big brands in just five years of presence?

(FoxyMoron has served imminent clients like The L’Oreal Group, Bacardi India, Castrol, Fosters, The Cadbury Group, Asian Paints, The World Wide Media Group, AXN India, VIP Industries, Rajasthan Royals, Quikr.)

In India, most businesses are relationship based. Two things that we have really managed to do right over the last five years is:
(1) To retain business that we work with year on year. Most of the clients that we work with are happy to have us back renew contracts annually.
(2) Penetrate large business houses. You may start working with one brand from an organization, but it is important to be able to expand horizontally and vertically inside organization. Working with multiple brands from the same group often assists in sound understanding of the industry and hence helps offer an acute domain specialty.

And of course, at the end of the day, your work speaks for itself! Good work manages to get around, get noticed and pick up a few awards along the way.

Do you think Delhi is a better place to start-up in comparison to other metropolitans?

At present, my work base is still very much Bombay. We have set up shop in Delhi last year and are, in fact, inaugurating our second office in Delhi today, but we are very much head quartered out of Bombay and I very much still operate of Bombay. The capital, however, presents currently, a wonderful diaspora of opportunity. A lot of brands have now shifted head quarters to Gurgoan and hence from a client opportunity stand point, Delhi (Gurgoan) is gold mine from a business perspective.

What are your thoughts about raising capital for FoxyMoron from investors?

FoxyMoron has always been a business that has grown organically year on year. Our limited business understanding has ensured that our business has been in the green since year one itself. Services businesses are usually not capital heavy and hence do not require sizable capital to scale. It has never been our intention to raise capital from investors or therefore, offer equity in exchange for the same. One of the best decisions we made while scaling the business was to retain the independence of running the business as flexibly as we wanted. Allow it to naturally take the shape that it has and come through its journey to reach a point of stability.

When you hire people under you, what kind of skills and profile do you look for?

When we hire people, we look for people that have a flair for communication and have a zest to learn. In our line of work, we understand that it is hard to come by people that have relevant work experience and are happy to take on freshers and train them. We have a robust training, learning & development program and have recently appointed a Chief Learning Office (CLO) to help up skill our teams and keep them up to speed. Students can help develop skills by consistently reading good literature, following international advertising and interacting with Digital Media themselves.

Does the knowledge of law help to have any edge in marketing?

With digital and content marketing, the understanding of Intellectual Property Law is a necessity. The internet is a cess-pool for infringement of IP. The bridge in terms of Law and Digital Marketing definitely lies in understanding IP law and it’s bearings.

Is there scope of legal internships in FoxyMoron?

Yes, we do take on legal interns through the year. Applicants can write to us at careers@foxymoron.org

What is your message for law students who want to pursue entrepreneurship?

Don’t over think things! As lawyers, we are taught to over think everything five times – often, that is the biggest mistake an entrepreneur can make or can get slowed down by. Entrepreneurship is a virtue of gut and instinct. While it is important to be a little thoughtful and conservative in our approach, they only way the ball rolls is when we stop thinking and start doing. Entrepreneurship is about checking things off the to-do list. Not adding more things on.
August 6, 2014
Sameer Jain, Partner, PAMASIS Law Chambers, on working at Goldman Sachs and the challenges of starting your own law firm
Sameer Jain graduated from NLU, Jodhpur, in 2008. While still in college he had the opportunity to work as a Summer Employee at Goldman Sachs and after graduating he started working at Ernst & Young as a Consultant and later joined Luthra & Luthra Law offices as an associate. With all his work experience and expertise garnered from law firms in India and abroad he started his own corporate law firm, PAMASIS Law Chambers.

We asked him to share his thoughts about:
- What he learned from mooting and looking for sponsors
- Coming from a family of lawyers
- Getting a job with Goldman Sachs
Tell us a bit about your childhood.

My childhood was somewhat nomadic. Since my father was in a transferable job, we changed cities every three years. That meant new school, new friends and new surroundings. It was exciting to experience so many changes in the early days of my childhood. These experiences made me more acceptable and adaptable to change.

I have many lawyers and judges in my family. My father is a judge, my mother is a lawyer and my elder brother is also a lawyer. My cousins are also practising law. Apart from them, both my grandfathers were lawyers too.

That said, I would be lying if I told you that I always wanted to become a lawyer and nothing else. My earliest fantasy was to join the Indian Army and serve my country, but that couldn’t materialize due to some reasons. Besides, I was quite fascinated by technology and doing something in that field was also on my mind. At one point in time, while I was studying in the commerce stream in classes 11th and 12th, I was also participating in various other competitions, such as robotics.

How I decided to do law is an interesting story as well. Though consciously even till the last year of my school I had not decided to become a lawyer, but there was something about it which always fascinated me. I remember once going to the High Court with my mother and watching this lawyer argue an Intellectual Property matter very eloquently. He was extremely thorough with both the law and the technology involved. That was the day I decided to become a lawyer. Rest is history!

Do you think having family members or mentors with a legal background help in this profession?

[sociallocker] It certainly is helpful in the initial years, of both law school and the profession. At the law school, being surrounded by lawyers can be rather helpful as the terminology and the procedures being taught are already imprinted in the mind. Moreover, one has a subtle edge over the others since he/she is able to discuss the finer points of his curriculum in an informal environment, with the people who have the practical experience of the field. However, this is just a minor advantage. It is a lot more complicated on the professional front. At the end of the day, it becomes necessary for every student to burn the midnight oil to excel in studies.

Merely having family members or a mentor with a legal background may not be of much assistance. For example, if someone chooses to work with a professional law firm through college recruitment process after graduation, a family background in law may not help. You will have to go through the same gruelling schedule as anyone else who does not have a similar upbringing. On the other hand, if you choose to litigate, having someone who is already established in the profession and is a senior would only help you to get that initial push to get referral matters.

Furthermore, in this era of super specialization, having someone from a completely unrelated background may also be of no assistance to the new professional. I, for example, with a specialization in Taxation and Land Acquisition, have not benefitted from the fact that I have a number of lawyers and judges in my family.

However, I firmly believe that, irrespective of your background, what makes you succeed in this profession in the long run is your grit, determination, eye for detail and eloquence.

Tell us about your law school experience. Share some highlights from your college days that shaped you as a lawyer.

My five years at National Law University, Jodhpur were the most enjoyable and important years of my life. Apart from teaching me the fundamentals of law, my term at law school also taught me how to research, moot, debate, finish work within extremely tight deadlines, think on my feet, face challenges and also run for my life, if need be!

Jokes apart, half the things I learnt at law school, and which played a crucial role in my becoming what I am today, were not all part of the curriculum.

Compulsory moot courts in every law subject taught us how to conduct research on legal points, apply the case laws and argue even the weakest of matters. By the time I graduated, I had presented over 60 moot courts.

At NLU, Jodhpur, it was mandatory for everyone to make projects in every subject. This really groomed my research and drafting skills. Also, what I developed was an art to find information at the right place and in no time.

Crunching mid-term exams, snap tests, projects, moot courts, paper presentations and leisure in a short span of time not only taught me how to manage my time, but also enhanced my skills of multi-tasking, working in a team and being happy during hard times.

During my five years at law school, I was lucky to get many opportunities to travel around the world as well in within India to present papers and participate in moot courts. Travelling overseas required a lot of money and coming from not a very affluent background, it was obviously not affordable. Therefore, we resorted to requesting for sponsorship. The whole team approached lawyers, government and corporate houses and requested them to fund our trips. This exercise was particularly very important since it taught me four lessons:

1)      Putting forth your point in the shortest possible manner and time, since senior lawyers did not have time to read or attend to long calls from a law student;

2)      Art of approaching the otherwise seemingly unapproachable people. I remember faxing a request for sponsorship to the then Hon’ble Chief Minister of Rajasthan and following up with a call to her office every evening for three days. Finally, the Hon’ble Chief Minister did not only return my call and spoke to me she also sponsored our entire trip to Geneva. I realized that sometimes the difference between success and failure is that one step that one should never fail to take;

3)      Art of persistence: getting a sponsorship was a long process and you had to be gracefully persistent with seniors till you got a final answer; and

4)      Taking rejection in a stride. Ninety per cent of our calls/e-mails bore no fruits!

Do you think participating in extracurricular activities helps a student in the long run?

Yes, most certainly they do! I strongly encourage every law student to participate in as many conferences, debates and moot courts as he/she can. Not just for the academic gains that it brings, but also for expanding one’s network and wealth of experience.

At every conference, debate or moot court competition you meet people from different backgrounds, countries, ethnicities and age groups discussing/arguing on the same matter. It is fascinating to learn about the different interpretations in which a proposition can be given.

I, along with a friend, participated in a paper presentation competition organized by the TATA Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. The topic for that year’s paper was ‘Spaces’. It was amazing to see how the word ‘Spaces’ was differently interpreted by lawyers, management students, engineers and social sciences students.

These activities help to expand your horizon considerably.

What are the best internships that you did, and how did they help you to develop as a lawyer?

My best internship was at Goldman Sachs’s Legal Department in Bangalore. There were several things about that organization that made my stint most memorable and enriching. The legal team there was relatively new when I joined them for internship. There were only five members including the Vice President, Legal. Each member of the team supported the Goldman offices in the USA and EMEA region on specified areas, such as Commercial Contracts, ISDA Derivative Contracts negotiations, etc. I was hired to support the internal legal team and work directly under the VP, Legal. My role included drafting and vetting commercial contracts, researching on various laws such as labour laws, taxation and narcotics, and to support the business in any off-hand legal query that would arise.

What initially appeared to be a very regular legal internship turned out to be the most enriching three months, because my boss entrusted me with a lot of responsibility. I was independently sent for discussions with the CFO and the MD. I was given the opportunity to not only sit through live negotiations, but even encouraged to equally participate in them. I was also given a lot of freedom to undertake many tasks. But, most importantly, I got along rather well with the other members of the legal team — I made great friends. That helped me get a deep insight into their work and understand the broader scheme of things. Sometimes I also assisted them by working overtime. My internship was extended and I was called back to work with them once again as a ‘Summer Employee’.

Furthermore, apart from their legal work, Goldman is also known for its strong HR culture. They believe in developing human capital. Therefore, the organization goes an extra mile to take care of their employees irrespective of their role, position, responsibility or tenure. They treat you like a King/Queen — gourmet food, pick-and-drop service, separate security desk, lavish office, and a very handsome stipend!

By the end of my internship I realized that, as an intern, it is best to choose to work in a small team, as the learning opportunities are immense and you can take on more responsibility. However, in a big team, if you are not experienced you may just end up pushing papers and researching on case laws. A small team and the increased responsibility give you a chance to prove yourself, make mistakes and learn. You also end up making better interpersonal bonds.

How important do you think is an LL.M. for a lawyer who wants to practice as a corporate lawyer?

Doing an LL.M. does add to one’s educational qualification, understanding of the subject and networking, but I would not say that doing an LL.M. is an absolute necessity for everyone.

Though, I have observed a trend where students pursue an LL.M. course immediately after graduation. I think that it may be a wrong move. Doing an LL.M. soon after graduation may not yield the same result since it merely becomes an extension of the three/five year course. The purpose of an LL.M. is to give a specialized insight into the subjects of one’s choice. A fresh graduate may not be fully aware of his interests immediately after graduation. I recommend that an LL.M. course should be opted after gaining some years of work experience. The experience would help in making a more informed decision regarding the subjects one wishes to study further. I have seen instances where students have completed an LL.M. in Intellectual Property Law immediately after graduation and ended up practising Corporate Law once they started working. In such a situation the time and money spent in doing an LL.M. goes waste. Therefore, to avoid this, one should always make a decision only after gaining a few years of experience and then choosing the LL.M. course and college on the basis of the subject and area of law they wish to specialize in, from their career perspective.

I have still not done an LL.M. As explained earlier, I have consciously hopped from a corporate house to a consultancy firm to a law firm and then finally to doing litigation. I have explored all the avenues that the profession of law has to offer and zeroed down on the one most suitable for me. I now know which areas of law I would like to specialize in and from where. I may take up an LL.M. course in Dispute Resolution, whenever time permits.

Tell us about your first job.

My first recruitment after graduation was in the Tax and Regulatory Department of Ernst & Young Private Limited. My work there was very intense and gruelling. My manager loved his work and was addicted to perfection. I remember often working for 36-40 hours at a stretch, handling client meetings, making memos, and then attending tax classes in whatever time remained.

It is very different for a lawyer to work in a predominantly accounting firm. The team at E&Y comprised both chartered accountants (CAs) and lawyers. CAs are naturally great with numbers, and that meant working twice as hard to learn both law and accounting.

My stint at E&Y was a great learning experience. It was, single-handedly, responsible for shaping me as a professional and as a tax lawyer. I owe it completely to the strict regimentation of my manager and the then Tax Head.

The biggest challenges that I faced during this transformation were to learn the art of punctuality, approaching an issue from a practical and commercial standpoint, drafting and putting work before personal chores.

You are currently a Partner at Pamasis Law Chambers. How was your journey from a Law student to a Partner.

My journey from a law student to founding PAMASIS Law Chambers was like a rollercoaster ride. As I said before, I consciously chose to experience every role one can experience as a lawyer — as an in-house counsel, a consultant, in a law firm, an associate and a litigation lawyer. Playing all these roles helped me make the informed decision to do what I am doing today. There is nothing in my career which, I could say, happened by accident.

The milestones from being a law student to Partner, PAMASIS Law Chambers are as under:
- Internship and then summer employment at Goldman Sachs: This gave me a taste of working with one of the world’s best organizations very early. It helped me develop my professional skills even before graduation.
- Tax Consultant at Ernst & Young: My stint here shaped me as a thorough professional and taught me every detail about the subject. It also helped me realize that presentation and drafting is as important as knowing about law.
- Associate at Luthra & Luthra: This gave me an experience in both litigation and advisory role. It helped me choose what I love the most, i.e., litigation.
- Guest Faculty at Institute of Chartered Accountants of India: Teaching helped me feel liberated. The sense of sharing is very satisfying.
- Starting PAMASIS Law Chambers: All the above experiences made me decide that this is what I want to do — starting my own firm and using all the knowledge from these institutions to build an organization that is focused on providing great legal solutions.
How does one prepare oneself to be a lawyer at Goldman Sachs?

Goldman Sachs’s Legal team has one of the toughest selection procedures. Sometimes, interviews go on for as long as six months involving upto eighteen to twenty rounds with different people.

The first step is to apply for an open position, which is normally advertised on their website. If you pass the pre-screening, you will get a call from the HR for the first round of interview. After that, depending on the position you have applied for, there will be a mix of personal, audio-visual and telephonic interviews.

First and the foremost, prepare yourself well for the subject area for which you are giving the interview. Second, Goldman Sachs gives a lot of importance to thinking on the feet and, therefore, a lot of thought-provoking questions will be thrown at you. For example, why a manhole cover is round or how many petrol pumps are there in the New York City. They also ask a lot of analytical and probability-related questions, since that relates to the business of investment banking, such as: If I toss a coin 99 times and I get Heads all 99 times, what is the probability of getting Tails at the 100th toss. Most people get it wrong. It is called the Gamblers fallacy. Studying things like these would be an added advantage. Lastly, be thorough with the working of the organization, the latest happenings, deals, etc., related to the organization.

You left one of the finest law firms in the country and started your own law firm in 2012. What made you take this decision?

It wasn’t a very hard decision to leave Luthra & Luthra to start PAMASIS Law Chambers. The organization gave me a lot of experience and insight into the practice of law. The key is to make up your mind; but once that is done, acting on your decision is not easy. The journey will not be a cakewalk; but handling the situation with a firm mind can make the obstacles appear less difficult and less frustrating.

Starting my own practice was a decision that was taken over a long period of time. Everything was thought through and discussed with a lot of people. My family was extremely supportive and encouraged me throughout the journey.

What are the top three challenges of setting up your own law firm?

The top three challenges in setting up your own law firm are as under:
- Building a new client base: The biggest handicap of starting up a law firm is that you cannot advertise or engage in any kind of social media marketing. Thus, spreading the name of the firm is the biggest challenge. The firm is independent of the partners and has to develop its own independent image. That brand-building during the initial days is tough.
- Managing the processes: The processes that are in place in an already established firm are absent in a new setup, and it is a challenge to establish everything along with the other more important tasks, such as bringing in clients, executing the work, etc. Processes like new matter opening, filing, billing, etc., are crucial but often take a backseat during the initial few months.
- Accounting and Recovery: Setting up a new law firm involves a completely different system of accounting compared to an individual lawyer. During the initial days of establishment, this aspect remains completely ignored since billing is relatively less and the specialized manpower has not been hired. One realizes that invariably there will be one or two minor violations in the process. The trick is to focus on these as early as possible and rectify at the soonest. Recovery of invoices is another issue which a start-up faces. Normally, there is a separate desk to follow up on unpaid invoices, which is not present in a start-up law firm — one is always pulled between building fresh, long-lasting relationships and getting a bill paid. Recovery calls made by the same person who has executed the work becomes somewhat awkward for a start-up.
Do you take interns?

We do take interns. The most important qualities that we look for in an intern are: he/she should be a leader, problem-solver, self-motivated and daring. A good knowledge of law is something that can be acquired over a period of time.

An intern should send us an email at info@pamasis.com with a cover letter specifying the duration of the internship that is being sought for. We encourage an intern to apply at least 3-4 months in advance.

What would be your advice to our young readers who may be aspiring to start their own law firms one day?

My advice to all the young readers who wish to start their own firm is not to rush into it just because you see a successful example in front of you. Give it a serious thought, chalk out a plan, think where the revenue will come from and save for at least a year with zero-revenue sustenance. I am not saying that do not take any risks. Take a calculated risk. Also, gain substantial experience before starting a firm. Obtain specialization in at least one area of law. Remember that once you have started a firm you will be at the top of it. There will be no one to review your work and make edits before sending it out to the client. This is a huge responsibility. Make sure you are equipped and experienced enough to send out documents and advice independently.

My last advice is very important. I received it from a close friend and it has come really handy. He told me to keep the fixed expenses at the minimum in the initial years. The most basic tendency is to immediately rent a fancy office, buy a bigger car and keep more staff as soon as the first stream of revenue starts flowing in. It is advised to curb this for the first two or three years. There are bound to be downturns; it is a service industry. Sustaining when the chips are low is the key to success in this business. Therefore, increase your fixed expenditure only when you are absolutely sure of the minimum revenue stream.

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July 20, 2014
Tanuj Kalia, Founder, Lawctopus, on his passion for entrepreneurship, blogging, and plans for the future
Tanuj KAlia graduated from NUJS, batch of 2013. He is founder, CEO, and publishing editor of Lawctopus, an online portal designed to help law students. The website has been featured in leading dailies such as the Economic Times, The Telegraph, among others. His other achievements include being student mentor for law students at IMS Learning Resources; research intern at A.K. Bansal and Advocates, Fidus Law Chambers, Research Foundation for Governance in India, among others.

In this interview we speak to him about:
- Combining law with his passion for entrepreneurship
- Working as Vice President of vakilsearch
- The future of Lawctopus
How would you like to introduce yourself to our readers?

I am Tanuj Kalia, born and brought-up in a small town in Himachal called Sundernagar. I started writing poems when I was 9, ended up doing law from NUJS, Kolkata, and started Lawctopus.com thanks to a heady mix of serendipity and chicken pox.

Tell us something about your life before law school.

My childhood was spent in a small town in Himachal Pradesh, Sundernagar, and it was an awesome idyllic place with lots of piddu ball cricket. For my Class 11 and 12 and LST I was in Chandigarh, where I did nothing but study well and hard.

What motivated you to pursue law?

I was pretty weak in Maths. I could actually feel my brain cells’ synapses give way when I tried to do any mathematical sums. Also, I was quite good in English. My parents never forced me to do Engineering etc., and it was my dad who brought home the 2008 NLSIU paper. After seeing the questions I was like “This requires writing, yippy!”. And so I was in. Also my dad is a civil servant and had studied law, so he knew a bit about the profession.

How did you get into blogging?

(Tanuj was awarded ‘Best Legal Blogger in India’ by LegallyIndia.com.)

I started writing and blogging for Legally India accidentally. When Legally India had just started, I had e-mailed Kian (the founder editor) that I wanted to intern under a good family law lawyer and could not find any information on it. Kian, the fantastic person that he is, put up my query on LI forums where I did get some good replies.

We got introduced this way and I told him that I loved writing and wanted to write for his website. The freelance rates for Legally India are top-notch and Kian is an excellent mentor. My first write-up for Legally India was on ‘Internships’.

I was a reluctant blogger, too. But Kian sort of goaded me into writing. And Legal Poet took off.

How does one become an excellent writer?

Innate talent is required. But it is just the starting point. If you are not talented, but work hard at this craft, you can get good, but maybe not great at it. Similarly, if you are super talented but do not work hard, you will remain just average.

I do not think I am up there to offer advice yet. But still, write from the gut, use simple words, short sentences, have shorter paragraphs. And then, edit ruthlessly.

Tell us about your life at NUJS.

It did get monotonous for me in the first year, when I was like, “Hey, what should I do?”

I played quite a bit of cricket then and made it into the University team. So yes, cricket took a bit of time then. Also, I was convinced that ‘internships’ were the be all and end all of a successful career in law and I researched like crazy on internships too.

In my second year, I took to blogging. In third year it was IDIA and Lawctopus. In the fourth year, love made me crazy! ” And hey! Is there even a fifth year in law school?

What kind of internships did you do while you were a student?

I stopped interning after my third year, because Lawctopus was doing well and in my view working on it was as useful as any internship. I interned at a lot of small places doing excellent work.

My internships sort of convinced me that I can do something similar what these people (the founders of the places I was interning at) are doing and that I should do ‘something of my own’.

I interned at Malhotra and Malhotra Associates in Chandigarh, which is a nice family and immigration law firm; RFGI, a think tank based in Ahmedabad; Fidus Law Chambers, an IP and Sports Law firm in Noida. I also worked under Ashwinie Kumar Bansal, an author/WIPO mediator.

What are the skills you have learnt at internships and you could not have learnt otherwise?

Not skills as such, but internships gave me a perspective.

Fidus Law Chambers taught me that sometimes you can suck, and it’s ok.

RFGI taught me how a small group of young people was making good changes, both big and small.

Malhotra and Malhotra taught me, that, well, there’s loads of money to be made in law.

How adept are you in Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization?

I really do not have proficiency in these areas. But yes, I did a one month course in SEO/SEM so that when I talk to a tech guy I can understand what he says and he can understand what I want.

How did you fare in your academics at NUJS?

I did well in my first year. From my third year onwards I took exams just to pass them. So, I used to curse myself if I scored anything above 45 marks (40 is the passing mark, so getting a 50 did not make sense; why work that hard for something you do not want). I ended up in the middle of my batch.

There was academic pressure, but I did not take it. My parents were again okay with it. They told me, “Complete law in five years, and do whatever you want.”

What did you do after your graduation?

I did not sit for campus placements in my fifth year. I was not looking for placements really, but I was sort of ‘open’.

Now vakilSearch is a very exciting company and I knew about it since my third year and had track its (and Akosha’s) growth since then. Both the companies were an amalgamation of law, entrepreneurship and big change which appealed to me.

The job and vakilSearch happened accidentally. I was on phone with Hrishikesh Datar (the CEO of vakilsearch) regarding some tie-up with Lawctopus. At the end of the phone call he was like “Why don’t you join vakilSearch?” I told him that if the offer ‘excited’ me, I would be up for it. And well, it indeed was a super exciting offer!

Frankly speaking, vakilSearch, Akosha, Rainmaker etc. had been on my hit list since the third year and I’d have loved to work for such companies.

What did you have to do as a VP of Marketing for VakilSearch?

I worked for six months. Basically I had to oversee lots of things: SEO, site design, social media, tie-ups, affiliates etc.

Tell us something about getting recognised by iversity as an ambassador.

I won a competition where you had to get the maximum number of people to join their courses. I did that through the Lawctopus network. And of course, then I had to blog, too, which was more exciting.

How did you manage your academics and Lawctopus together?

Well, I did NOT manage my academics. I used to study the night before the exam for over six hours straight. I used to be on two red bulls and I speed read well (1000 words+ an hour). So yes, that’s how I mismanaged my academics!

Did you visit entrepreneur meetings during the formative years of Lawctopus?

Yes, our common friend, Ramanuj introduced me to Start-up Saturdays and I found the events good, though not great. I’d say start-ups in India are going to rise. (Am patriotic, so anything I say about India is going to be positive).

How difficult would you say the first two years were of Lawctopus?

Starting a website requires very little money. So, the five of us just pooled in our pocket money. It was not difficult because we were then just doing it for fun. But yes, there were lots of ups and downs in the initial years. Lawctopus is a self-sustaining, profit-earning entity now. So, if I need to invest in a new related project, the money that Lawctopus generates by itself, does it for me.

There were news once that Lawctopus had lost all its database and files due to a server crash. Is it true?

Yes, quite true! Stupidity and carelessness lead to this. Yes, it was devastating. But well, I had come afresh from a gruelling ten day Vipassana meditation retreat (which is by far the best experience I have had in my life). The crux of the learning is that everything is impermanent and so I took it in my stride. The Lawctopus’ co-founders Prateek and Dhruv worked like maniacs to restore whatever they could via Google cache. It helped, but only a bit. Unfortunately, we could not manage to get all the lost data.

What were the most difficult times for you regarding Lawctopus?

The most difficult time was when we had to decide the ‘equity’ for five of us. We had just started as friends without a care for all this. But the fight turned ugly and one of co-founders left the team. We had a great shouting match and I don’t think either of us (both pretty calm souls) has ever been that angry. Luckily, we (the friend who left the team and me) are still best friends and are planning something together.

What do you have to say about so many people blindly copying the Lawctopus model?

The egoist in me says: ‘Imitation is the best form of flattery.’ But yes, this mindless copycatting confuses me. There are so many things to be done. Have a look at Legal Sutra. It was such a nice concept. Someone could have done that. They did not. Now, we are trying to do a Legal Sutra!

I do not think the present lot will sustain themselves for even two or three years. A couple of the clones are already dead. I thought Project Cloud was great and had invested in better technology but they too are not doing much nowadays. But then again Lawctopus is also far from perfect or even excellent. There is so much to be done and I am sure we will soon have a worthy competitor.

Were there any occupational hazards running Lawctopus?

The occupational hazard is that you have to be on it daily. You have to be regular or else the readers will lose trust in you. Yes, I do get hate mails. They help us and keep us on our toes. But I do get love mails too. So it sort of balances out. Meditation helps in dealing with all this

Do you provide any work opportunities for law students?

We do not take interns. But we have a college manager program, which has been improving in its form and effectiveness.

What are your thoughts about raising capital for Lawctopus from investors?

I have had three/four investor talks. But money does not excite me too much. So, I have never taken it seriously.

What are your plans regarding Lawctopus for the upcoming years?

We’ll be launching a massive open online law journal (inspired by Legal Sutra), a law school listing and review section (inspired by Zomato), a social networking functionaliy and an app.

There are two types of growth in my mind: one is slow and steady, but works like magic (just like compound interest does magic to your money) and is achievable with good old hard work. The other type of growth is the massive, black swan types. It takes innovation and hard-work and a bit of luck. The first type of growth should always occur (or else you are dead). One should also strive towards achieving the second by making bold moves and taking big risks; but I don’t think you should be dependent on these.

So, I don’t think of growth in terms of being ‘ready’ or it being in ‘phases’. You should always be growing.

What does it take to be an entrepreneur?

One can be entrepreneurial by default and we can even be inspired and encouraged to be entrepreneurial.

Three skills required for an entrepreneur:
- Good at ideating: If you struggle to come up with ideas, maybe this is not your cup of tea. Again, if you fear experimenting and failing at things, drop the plans!
- Convincing: You need to convince the world at large about your idea. It includes your co-founders and investors and clients. To convince you will need truckloads of passion and be great at talking or writing.
- Determined: Do your thing relentlessly. Take feedback and work on improvements. But do not get bogged down by what others say.
Lastly, what would be your message to law students and young lawyers who want to pursue alternative legal careers or entrepreneurship?

Just go ahead and do it. Start with small achievable goals. Do not lose too much sleep or money on your plan. Bring improvements to your plans and include consistency in your modus operandi. Learn learn learn. Learn from books. Learn from other people. You do not need to reinvent the wheel.
June 18, 2014
Piya Bose on believing in dreams, leaving law firm & starting up Girls on the Go Club
Piya Bose is a corporate lawyer who left her job to follow her passion: Travelling. She now writes regularly for travel magazines and have also given presentations for TEDx events. Here, she discusses her decision to leave a safe, lucrative career and following her dreams. In this interview, she talks about:
- Discovering her passion for travelling.
- Her startup – Girls on the Go Club and it empowers woman.
- Difference between Legal Education and Legal Profession.
- Why is it important to follow your dreams.
Given that most of our readers are law students and lawyers, how would you introduce yourself to them?

Though I have chosen to take up tourism as a profession, it still does give me pride that I have a degree in BSc.LLB from the prestigious National University of Juridical Sciences(NUJS) and have worked with great legal minds.

The training I received at law school has helped me greatly in the work I do, starting from research methodology, to drafting a contract with people I do business with or being aware of my rights and liabilities as a service provider. So, to sum it up, I would not say I have totally left the profession as law is very integral to the work I do. Being from a legal background, gives greater credibility and respect to the work I do now.

Though it’s one of the most asked questions but yet, why law?

Frankly, I never gave much thought to it at the time of applying for the course. I was fresh out of school and it was one of the many options I was exploring. I happened to get through NUJS first and decided to stick to it, as everyone advised me a professional course like this would be a good degree to pursue. So, in a sense I think I just let destiny lead me and I got great exposure to different thought processes and interesting subjects, which are valuable to me even today.

If you have to sum it up in a word, what would that be?

Intense.

You worked with a law firm before starting off with Girls on the Go Club. What made you make the jump?

Frankly, I could not see myself sitting at a desk for the larger part of the day and working graveyard shifts for the rest of my life. Even when you really like the work you do, there has to be a work – life balance that I found totally missing. My mind would wander off to exotic islands and snow capped mountains and I realised that given the kind of work timings I had I would probably never get to travel to even a fraction of places in my bucket list. So, I had to make a decision about whether I wanted to continue with my current lifestyle and of course earn a great salary or just risk it all, take a leap of faith and start living my bucket list. I chose the latter option and then there was no looking back at all.

Starting an all girls club is certainly a very interesting concept but why just an all girl club?

I have been travelling since I was 16 years of age. My first solo trip was to Brazil as a Rotary Exchange student. Little did I know then, but that experience did shape my views greatly and taught me that there is a world outside the box I live in, just waiting to be explored.

I continued of course with school and went on to get my LLB degree.

But something in me was begging to get out there and travel. Even while I was working at a law firm, I would get out of the city at every possible opportunity. I would research on interesting travel routes and places. I remember telling a colleague once that it is possible to travel from India to London by land and he thought I had completely lost it. Since I did not have the time for extensive travel, I hosted several travellers from various countries. I remember listening in awe to the tales of a 18 year old woman from Israel and how she had been backpacking for a year and I thought if women from other countries could do it, what was stopping Indian women to travel on their own?

When my wanderlust got the better of me, I decided to put in my papers one day and take off for a trip from Lucknow – Nepal – Tibet. Standing in front of the Mount Everest I got my calling to do something unique in the field of travel. In the weeks following the trip, I gave it some thought and decided I wanted to infect other women who were scared to travel on their own, with my travel bug. That is when I started ‘Girls On The Go’ in 2008 and since then more than 1,000 women have travelled with us from Nagaland to Bali and now we are braving it to Antarctica.

Leaving a cushy well paying job and taking the plunge requires good amount of guts, plus our society generally has this concept of being realistic. Keeping all this in mind, did you face any difficulty while starting up?

Yes, it was like sailing over very choppy waters. Parents and well wishers thought I would just move on to another law firm or do something else in the field of law. They were disturbed to see that I was quitting the legal profession and in their opinion throwing 5 years of legal education down the drain. I could not make them understand that though I would not be in the mainstream legal field, but my 5 years of legal training would come into maximum use now that I was starting a venture on my own.

Convincing family was really tough, so I had to really steel myself up to work very hard and prove myself. Once the first few trips took off and the media encouraged me by featuring GOTG in prominent newspapers, magazines and news channels, it was only then that they started seeing some sense in what I had set out to do.

Startup capital was a challenge. I had spent almost all my savings in travelling to Tibet. Everyone thought it was impossible for me to start a business without money. But I knew deep down that with the correct combination of passion, out of the box thinking and determination, I could start my venture on a zero cash model. This is what economists call ‘Human capital’ which we tend to not even consider when we talk about startup capital. I was not scared of failure, because frankly I had nothing in the first place to lose. So, I decided to fully use the potential of my creativity, my power of conviction (thanks to my legal training), research skills etc to get the first trip going. Once the trip took off, I knew I was on the path I was meant to be and there was no going back.

A roller coaster ride or a pleasant journey in woods, which describes your journey so far in a better way?

I would say a bit of both. The thrills of a roller coaster ride and the highs and lows and the challenges of coming out in broad day light from the woods unharmed.

How is a typical day for you like?

A typical day for me is full of exciting research on the next place to take women travelling to, attending travel conferences, meeting suppliers from various countries, meeting up clients (I really look forward to this, as I get a chance to meet phenomenal women from various backgrounds) or interacting with them on social media, catching up with travellers etc. I also love to write or blog once in a while. English Literature was always the subject I wanted to study, but destiny had different plans for me.

Most importantly I get to spend quality time with family and friends and have a healthy social life too.

You have written for publications like Outlook Traveller, Hindustan Times and websites like Makemytrip.com. Tell us something about that.

I love writing and I love travelling. So, it is but natural that I would do some amount of travel writing, describing the sights and sounds of every new place I visit.

Not intending to make it sound like a 5 year government plan, but yet, where do you see yourself five years down the line?

I definitely plan to expand GOTG, so I can get every woman in this country to travel like never before. My work will only be truly fulfilling, when every woman irrespective of her economic background can travel. To me, travel is empowerment and liberating and every woman travelling on her own would be absolute empowerment in my opinion.

Last but not the least, what would be your advice to law students and dreamers?

A dream is something that does not let you sleep. If there is a burning desire in you to do something, you really must do it. It could be a change within the profession or stepping outside it. Irrespective, your legal knowledge will never go wasted. In fact it will really push you to put all the skills you have learnt in law school and your legal acumen to the very best to survive.

Law as subjects of study and as a profession are two very different genres and one must remember the difference. You may leave the profession of law (i.e. not work in a law firm, court, in house legal team etc), but you can never really get out of studying law as a subject. Irrespective of the profession you choose, there will always be contracts, legal bindings, tax laws, intellectual property rights etc that one has to be familiar with. Everyone with a legal background is privileged that we have a basic understanding of this discipline and that puts us in a more favourable position. So, in that sense remember ‘you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave’.
May 14, 2014
Arman Sood on starting up E-Shack from Jindal Global Law School and being an entrepreneur

Arman shares his inspirations for creating a startup that sells bar and party accessories. He tells us about funding for the startup and the supportive college environment which made this endeavour possible. Being an entrepreneur he also tells us how he managed highs and lows.

Most of our readers are law students and young lawyers. How will you introduce yourself to them?

My partner and I are both 4th Year Law Students at Jindal Global Law School. We are from Kolkata and Jalandhar respectively and met at Jindal itself. From then on we have been best friends, roommates and now even business partners. We love the work we’re doing, we love law school and are keen sports enthusiasts and like all of you out there we love watching Suits and Game of Thrones and are heavily into TV Shows and Movies.

Why did you decide to study law?

Both of us had very different reasons to study the law, Ashwajeet felt it would be great to know the law from a business perspective and always had the entrepreneurial passion in him, I on the other hand love public speaking and if I were to do law it would surely be litigation.

Tell us about your college life? What do you guys do for fun?

Haha, that’s a controversial question, lots of things, most of them not allowed on our residential campus. On campus we spend time with friends, play a lot of sports and right next to Jindal there are two theka’s called “Chowki” and “Beeswameel” which we frequent even if it is in the middle of the day to grab a beer and brainstorm.

How do you think Jindal Global Law School is different than other law schools? Do you think that being there sort of helped in conceiving E- Shack?

I think Jindal Global Law School is awesome much to the contrary opinion many of my peers from the National Law Schools might have. We are bunch of young hardworking kids who really want to make it big and the institution guarantees that exposure. I don’t know if the institution necessarily helped us in coming up with the idea but it has been both an advantage and disadvantage. The attendance requirement has been a problem for us because we keep travelling out to Delhi and Jalandhar for work and of course the odd days when we just don’t wake up for class. Our friends and professors have been great so that has been an advantage.

Coming to E- Shack, how did that happen?

I don’t remember exactly because we were hammered and in Bangkok, just kidding we used Beer Bongs and played Beer Pong at my father’s 50th Birthday and realized that there was a void in India as far this segment was concerned. We came back skipped our internships and launched eShack after 4 months of hard work.

Why the name “E- Shack”?

It was a rather difficult decision. We asked people for help and suggestions and wanted to make it interactive. Finally we chose eShack even though it was Bar and Party Accessories it because it was broad enough to expand to other verticals which we have done now. We have launched a line of T-Shirts and want to expand to other verticals, which we can under this name.

A roller coaster ride or a pleasant journey in woods, what describes your journey so far in a better way?

A fine line between the two, there are days where we on a roller coaster and there are days we just sit back and relax enjoying the fruit of our labour.

Managing classes, projects etc. etc. and running a business. How do you guys manage that without having a clone?

As I said earlier our friends and professors have been extremely kind and supportive. We make plans, schedules and execute them well in advance. As partners we have an understanding of who does what, when and how and that makes it easy to balance everything. Since we say on campus most of the time we have two trusted employees who run the warehouse and extremely supportive courier agency that makes sure things are in flow while we aren’t around.

How is a typical day like for you guys?

A typical workday would be extremely hectic. We have to attend our classes and maintain a 75% attendance as well as do projects, take surprise tests and examinations and manage our law school studies, which are getting tougher by the year. In between classes we make calls, dispatch products, handle the warehouse. Post classes we handle invoices, marketing, PR and taxes and late in the evening we satisfy customer queries and plan the strategies for the next day and week. Since we divide our work well and meet timelines we are able to stay afloat. We usually brain storm late into the night so the only thing we really lose out on is sleep.

Initial investment is a big issue for any start- up, how did you guys manage that? Are you guys bootstrapping?

We weren’t born with a silver spoon in our mouths but we had it a little easier than most entrepreneurs. Our start up funding came from our parents. It’s not like we asked them and they said here you go, it was a fun process. We pitched our ideas to them, heard their criticisms, revised our plans and went back with projections and made them believe in the idea and us more than we even did before taking the funding. After that we have been bootstrapping and haven’t taken a penny more.

Every business has a target market, how would you define the ambit of E- Shack’s market? Do you think students form a major market segment for E- Shack?

With our product range we have been able to cater to varied preferences and tastes. Even though we showcase only 14 products we have manage to have a little something for beer lovers as well as tequila and vodka aficionados. Also some of our products such as beer bongs and beer helmets cater to the younger generation and crowd whereas whiskey stones and alcohol dispensers have found a slightly older clientele thus covering a wide audience.

How has been the profit/loss ratio of E- Shack so far?

I won’t answer that because I don’t think a figure can define either the work we’ve put in or the results till now or what we can achieve. We’re happy where we are and have a long way to go.

Not intending to make it sound like a 5 year government plan, but yet, where do you guys see yourself five years down the line?

Retired!

Last but not the least, what would be your advice to your fellow students and dreamers?

There is no right time to start up. It’s a gut feeling an instinct that tells you to take the plunge and when you feel that its best to jump right in. Even if things don’t go your way remember that as an entrepreneur one needs to adapt and innovate and things do always fall into place. Do things the right way, always and it will get you farthest. There are no short cuts in life.

May 9, 2014
Apurva Sukant, Founder, Androidly, on studying in CNLU, his passion for philosophy and venturing into tech
Apurva Sukant is a graduate from CNLU, batch of 2011. During this time he has interned with the likes of Mr. Arvind Mouar, Advocate, Civil Court Patna, the Rural Litigation & Entitlement Kendra, Amnesty International India, Honb’le Justice Mr. Ajay Kumar Tripathi, Patna High Court, among others. In May, 2012, he took the entrepreneurial plunge and started his own range of Android smart watches, Androidly. He is also Founding Partner and Managing Director at Scenescape, a registered partnership firm, dealing in gardening and art.

In this interview we speak to Apurva about:
- Making the shift from lawyer to entrepreneur
- His diverse internship experiences
- His passion for technology
Most of our readers are law students and young lawyers. How will you introduce yourself to them?

I would like to introduce myself as a tech and a philosophy enthusiast first and subsequently as an entrepreneur and a lawyer.

Why did you decide to study law? What would have you been doing if not law?

I found law to be the only professional degree with no limits on what could be done with it in the future. This is to say, law is very open-ended. Today, we have lawyers successfully walking every field of life, ranging from the arts, politics, business, non-profits, and there are a few in technology too.

What kind of internships did you do while you were a student?

I have interned at a few non-profits, like Amnesty International and Rural Litigation Entitlement Kendra, which was during my early years as a law student. Later on, I did an internship under a High Court judge in Patna, and with an additional Solicitor General in the Supreme Court. The high point in my internships was one term with the eminent lawyer Mr. Ram Jethmalani, during which I got to see and work on some landmark cases and be in the same room with some very influential people. The only internship I did at a law firm was at Luthra & Luthra.

A singular experience during my internship was when I got to interact with and legally help folks in remote villages in Himachal Pradesh, during my internship with RLEK. The villages were small with around twenty households and were inaccessible by road. There was no electricity or telecommunication. The beauty of the place and its people has me searching for words! As a plus, I found that work meaningful too as I was able to cause direct change in peoples’ lives, albeit at a smaller scale.

How did you manage the shift from HNLU to CNLU? Did you face any difficulty caused due to the shift?

The shift was great as I was welcomed in the institution with open hands and hearts of both the faculty and students. I found some of my best friends there, and was fortunate enough to win the university presidential elections for the Student’s Bar Council. I went to the Willem C. Vis moots, both the Hong Kong and Vienna rounds with competent and dedicated teams from CNLU only. So I’m only too glad that that happened.

How did you decide to venture into the startup space?

Internships are co-curricular activities, meant to interface us with the industries and the real world. As a law student, I found it normal to go to NGOs, courts and firms for internship just like my peers. In hindsight I can say that an internship in the legal section of a tech company might have come in handy, but that never happened. As a law student, I wanted my education and experience to be as complete as possible, and so I did all the regular categories of internships.

Starting up, after doing a slew of regular internships doesn’t seem unusual to me, as the idea of starting up had always run parallel to my circumstances as a law student. I had always thought of being a decent lawyer first, so that I could use all that knowledge into starting my venture successfully afterwards.

How did Androidly happen?

‘Happened’ is a good verb to describe the story of Androidly. The story is about four childhood friends together, all of whom are moonstruck with technology. After about completing their graduation, we serendipitously decide to ‘make’ things. I think it works out something like this, when people become really good at things, they naturally want to take their stuff out into the real world. This might be our innate sense of adventure, our desire to make a ‘dent in the universe’ etc. When we became convinced that what we could do would be comparable to what billion dollar multinationals were doing, then we were able to shut off our risk-aversion behaviour and take the plunge!

The specific story about how we decided up on a smart watch is related to our perception that whatever we were to make, should be cutting edge and something which would arouse interest out of sheer novelty first and functionality and quality later. It should be something that everybody needs, but nobody can place their finger on quite yet. Smartphones have been with us for some time now, and tablets are becoming popular every day. The wrist seemed the eventual destination for the next generation computing platform, and that’s when we decided it was to be a next generation smart watch.

Tell us something about the smart watch that Androidly developed?

The Androidly smartwatch is the world’s smallest full Android device, and the first complete Android smartwatch in the world. The watch comes with a full suite of sensors including GPS, camera, accelerometer and a full suite of radios including, Phone, WiFi, Bluetooth. So there is not much difference between a latest Android based phone and the Androidly smartwatch as far as functionality goes. The only difference is the form, now all this functionality is available on your watch, which lets you carry the whole world on your wrist.

How is a typical day for the CEO of Androidly Systems Pvt. Ltd.?

The typical day goes making calls and sending emails to customers, and business inquiries and doing development work on the watch and our websites. Outreach activities with the media and customers worldwide also come in a bit, though most of that is handled by our very capable communications officer, Pavneet. Occasionally meetings are scheduled with corporate partners to negotiate deals and alliances.

Do you think that in today’s time when wristwatches are being replaced by phone, Androidly’s smartwatch would make a breakthrough?

Wristwatches are dumb devices, they perform only one function, that of telling the time and date. Smart phones perform many functions one of which is also telling time, so inevitably phones are replacing watches. Androidly unlike traditional watches, is a smart watch and has all the features of a latest Smartphone and it too tell the time. So going by the example you provided, and for the same reasons, Androidly should replace phones, just like phones have replaced traditional watches and shouldn’t have much trouble in the breakthrough process!

Is there any particular marketing model you are working on for Androidly?

We have several and we favour none in particular. We pursue crowd-funding, direct sales, distribution arrangements and other forms of corporate partnerships. We estimate our target audience to be 15-35, belonging mostly to the nerdy, techie crowd. We are happy to reach them through whichever model happens to work!

Where do you see your company 5 years down the line?

We would like to shift out our offices in US preferably California! Currently Androidly operates from UK and India which is fine for now. Seeing how most of the tech development and funding activity happens in the US, I think it is most likely that we will end up there. We would likely have partnerships with telecom operators in India , China and UK, as several talks are already underway with some operators right now.

We would have had an IPO, or be trying hard for one. I believe the idea is ultimately to transform into a brand, from a device manufacturer.

Do you think doing law is helping your current career in any way?

Self employment is not a career!

With that in mind, let me give an example of when we had company law in our 4th year, the study freaks were busy memorizing the clauses and case laws, and the party freak were busy not caring and partying. I looked upon those clauses as words of God that were going to regulate my life for all foreseeable time! Every clause invoked in me a very personal sense of wonder or disgust, depending on whether it was going to make my life easier or tougher later on. This was true for a host of other related subjects too. So yes, law helped me and the venture in a very big and direct way.

Luckily I was able to grasp this importance when it mattered.

Everyone faces rough patches in their career – what will be your advice to beat a rough patch being faced by a young lawyer?

Rough patches are the best. This might sound a bit unintuitive but in my personal experience I have constantly found it to be true. Rough patches and failures in general are an entrepreneur’s best friend. It is said that the reasons for any venture succeeding are always unknown, because they are so complex, interdependent and spread out. While reasons for failure are always specific. So failing offers better chances of actually learning, given that one is willing to be brave and learn. My advice in this regard would be to smile, and be attentive while one is through a rough patch. Given that time continues to flow, no failure or rough patch is terminal, as one always has the next moment to innovate and pivot from the failure into success or something like it.

How is easy or difficult is the process of transition from being a law student to a lawyer? What would be your piece of advice to gonna- be- graduates?

The transition is extremely difficult. I believe this is true for other careers too, where one has to provide business for oneself, such as for doctors. The educational institutions of our country are to blame for this. In the case of law, for five years, they systematically amputate the mental faculties of students and push them into a delirious, make believe fantasy land of text books. They are told, this is what it is, and this is how it works, and if you can memorize it then you have succeeded. You couldn’t get any further from the truth. Anybody working in the field has this complaint, they don’t teach all that matters in the law school. Human beings are effectively turned into compliant vegetables unable to stand up for themselves. Obviously this translates into an extremely difficult transition for students. My advice would be to be vigilant towards real world development in one’s field. One should always try and gain as much experience as possible by ‘doing’ all the things that one is taught ‘about’. Lastly, one shouldn’t forget to keep smiling.

Do you take interns? How should one apply? What do you look for in interns?

We keep getting emails from prospective interns. At this time though, we neither have the inclination for interns and nor the appetite for them. We would be going on a recruitment spree very soon, but for that we already have people and institution in mind, so again interns don’t figure in this plan.

If we did take interns, we would probably look at their philosophic outlook on technology and also the knowledge and experience they have. Probably give them a couple of quirky, offbeat problems to solve like Google does.

Last but not the least, what would be your message to law students, young lawyers and wannabe entrepreneurs?

I would like to leave you with a quote from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. “She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it).”
September 12, 2013