The Indian legal industry has been witnessing young lawyers set high standards and achieve their goals at a very young age. ALB spotlights Indian lawyers under the age of 40 who have been making an impact in the country’s legal scene. The list is in alphabetical order and some lawyers have been profiled.
Individuals needed to either be under the age of 40 and based permanently in India. The list was chosen based on the following criteria:
- Important deals or cases
- Key clients
- Significant accolades received in the form of public recognition, awards, etc.
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NEHA DILIP BHOSALE
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Bhosale runs an all-service law firm mainly dealing with litigation in the name of NDB Law founded in 2012. A third-generation lawyer, she is a dispute resolution expert. Bhosale has handled various heavy stakes litigation and arbitration matters in various forums and courts. She has done exemplary work leading to some landmark judgments. Among some of her notable matters, Bhosale and her team defended a leading state cricket association in India. The association was permitted as an associate member and not a full-time member. Therefore, a writ petition was filed seeking liberty for a grant of a full-time membership. In another matter, Bhosale and her team successfully represented 6400 slum dwellers before the High Court on one of the biggest slum development scheme cases against a real estate developer. Furthermore, in an infrastructure/ road construction matter of more than 5 billion rupees, the validity of consent terms was challenged before the High Court and Supreme Court of India. Bhosale succeeded in the matter. Her client says “Ms Bhosale is among the young and indigenous lawyers who have in-depth knowledge, is thorough in her field, efficient, extremely helpful and co-operative”. Besides this, she has closed several transactional documents regarding real estate, lending agreements, some transactions of more than 13 billion rupees, have been closed by her. |
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ABHISHEK GUPTA
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Gupta regularly appears before all criminal courts in India and also opines on foreign laws in matters related to financial crimes, for victims of such crimes choosing to prosecute the perpetrators and for such perpetrators defending themselves from criminal allegations. His involvement in such matters goes beyond pure legal advice and representation, in as much as, with almost a decade worth of banking experience, Gupta is also instrumental in guiding forensic audits, fund tracing and similar exercises, which are an integral part of financial crime prosecution/defence. Gupta has worked in the financial distress and insolvency driven units of the Indian banking industry for almost a decade. As such, he gained first-person insights into the mindset of the Indian banker associated with such units, the practical operations of such units, and the corresponding legal mechanisms (i.e., debt recovery and insolvency courts). In his present role, as a banking and insolvency lawyer, Gupta represents distressed/insolvent companies, as well as creditors before quasi-judicial forums like National Company Law Tribunals and Debt Recovery Tribunals, leveraging his banking experience to develop innovative, cost-effective and practical solutions to address impending or ongoing financial distress. Gupta, also participates in various high-value domestic and international commercial arbitration mandates, mainly involving financial transactions with lending institutions of various hues, starting from banks to financial institutions and co-operative banks. He has also assisted in the execution of banking transactions and conducted extensive legal due diligence for banking and securitisation matters. Furthermore, Gupta has extensive experience in banking and securitisation transactions as well as high-value corporate debt recovery matters, having formerly been a chief manager with one of India’s leading private sector banks prior to joining MZM Legal. With experience spanning almost a decade and a half, Gupta has proved himself to be a dedicated and hard-working lawyer with an aptitude for developing time and cost-effective solutions to complicated legal issues. |
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ROHIT JAIN
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Jain is a business-savvy legal counsel, who has a rare combination of being a qualified civil engineer and lawyer from IIT Kharagpur. Jain focuses primarily on corporate and commercial matters. He started his career with erstwhile Amarchand Mangaldas and then moved to his family firm, Singhania & Co. In his initial years, Jain focused on core litigation and arbitration representing clients before various fora including the Hon’ble Supreme Court, various High Courts, tribunals etc. Amongst some of his important matters, Jain was successful in defending a wind energy major in an arbitration case involving claims of 2.5 billion rupees. He also successfully defended a PSU in another arbitration case against an infra-structure major listed company, involving claims of 1.5 billion rupees. He successfully represented a vanaspati company and got an arbitration award against a major FMCG listed company. Jain has also represented and argued successfully before the Rajasthan High Court and ITAT Jaipur and has landmark judgments on education law relating to university autonomy to his credit. Now heading the NCR offices of Singhania & Co, his practice has widened to advise clients from a more high-level perspective on setting up of business, mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, private equity investments, commercial contracts, commercial legal strategies etc. He has been able to quickly expand teams at Gurugram and New Delhi offices to advise and represent businesses on both contentious and non-contentious legal issues. His team recently helped a listed company in closing a $65 million all-stock acquisition. Of late, Jain’s portfolio has also expanded to include venture capital funds, angel networks, incubators, and start-ups as clients. His keen interest in technology and engineering background is well appreciated by clients. He has recently become an independent director on the board of Titan Biotech, a listed company. He is also on the board of a not-for-profit organisation called Millennials Giving Back Foundation, as well as he is a featured lawyer in AsiaLaw Rankings 2021. Harsha Deka, CEO and founder of My3dSelfie, says: “Rohit is by far the best startup lawyer I have ever come across not only just because of his in-depth knowledge and instant answers but also for his empathy towards entrepreneurs and understanding where they are coming from. This is so rare and unique. So glad to have found such a professional!” |
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PADMAJA KAUL
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A commercial disputes, arbitration, and insolvency specialist, Kaul has close to 12 years of experience in the legal industry and, was the youngest partner appointed by IndusLaw. She has counselled her clients on various deals and, has played a pivotal role in developing IndusLaw’s white-collar crime practice. Kaul has advised and represented domestic, foreign and multinational clients spanning multiple sectors, such as telecom, trading, supply chain and logistic, funds, commercial banks, payment system operators, online plat-forms, start-ups, infrastructure majors and high net worth individuals on several complex and high-value disputes, before various courts, tribunals, and international arbitral tribunals. She was instrumental, in enabling a leading bike taxi aggregator to carry out business operations in several states including Tamil Nadu and Bengaluru, by representing them before various courts. Moreover, Kaul successfully counselled telecom companies, including a leading Norwegian telecom giant, before various fora including the Delhi High Court and Supreme Court of India, with regards to their commercial and shareholders disputes. She has also effectively guided a Gulf-based retail company before SIAC, in their dispute with India’s largest retail group, regarding their foreign investment in India. Kaul has worked extensively across the entire spectrum of the insolvency ecosystem, including advising and representing resolution professionals, creditors, corporate debtors, and resolution applicants. On the employment disputes and white-collar front, she has represented various clients in issues pertaining to non-compete/non-solicit, fraud, embezzlement, misconduct, confidentiality, and defamation. She has also conducted employee investigations for several multinational companies. Among her numerous accolades, Kaul was a finalist for the Arbitration Lawyer of the Year India and Middle East in the inaugural ALB Women in Law Awards in 2021. Kaul has been named as a Recommended Lawyer for Labour and Employment and White-Collar Crimes, in the Legal 500 Asia-Pacific 2022 edition. She is a “solution provider, agile, responsive, and has good subject matter and legal knowledge,” as quoted in the Asialaw Profile Rankings 2022 edition. Another client has said: “Padmaja is an excellent attorney who combines legal know-how with pragmatic advice, her solution-oriented approach and ability to resolve issues effectively is highly commendable.” |
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SIMRAT KAUR
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Kaur has more than 10 years of experience in intellectual property protection. She advises clients on trademark rights clearance, brand portfolio management, brand acquisition/transfer, trade-mark filings (national as well as through a Madrid route), defensive registrations, brand development strategies, trademark watch and monitoring, co-existence deals, franchise/co-branding agreements, enforcement issues, counterfeiting, and domain name disputes. Moreover, Kaur is well versed in dealing with complex copyright issues falling outside the traditional boundaries of intellectual property. She advises on customer-facing terms and conditions/click-through contracts for online product sales, data protection compliances and antitrust guardrails for e-commerce platforms as well. Prior to joining LexOrbis, Kaur was an independent practitioner. She has also worked with Luthra and Luthra Law Offices (now L&L Partners) in the past. She has assisted clients in closing high-value software deals and diverse nature of contracts with vendors, distributors, artists etc. Furthermore, she offers strategic advice on regulatory changes and other public policy matters too. Kaur has catered to a wide range of clients from entertainment, technology, pharma, agriculture equipment, automobile industry etc. She was a part of the team that assisted Amazon Seller Services in launching its new generation Echo devices in the year 2020. Apart from this, Kaur frequently writes on issues surrounding trademark protection, intermediary liability, statutory licensing in copyright, content moderation, value gap in the music industry, working of copyright societies etc. |
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NALINI MISHRA
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Mishra is an accomplished lawyer with experience in both Indian and international matters. She focuses majorly on banking and finance, corporate law, commercial arbitration and mediation, shipping and maritime. She is skilled in international arbitration under major rules of Singapore, New Jersey, Switzerland, and the UK. With more than 15 years of experience, Mishra has successfully been appearing in international arbitration matters before the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), Singapore Chamber of Maritime Arbitration (SCMA), London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) under the American Arbitration Association (AAA), Swiss Court as well as other ad-hoc domestic arbitration. Mishra also handles joint ventures, mergers and other related matters under corporate laws. Recently, she has had two favourable arbitration awards in Singapore. Besides this, during the pandemic, she settled a New Jersey arbitration matter for Rediff India under the ICDR Rules, and concluded two arbitration issues under the Swiss Court and also the setting aside of SIAC award respectively. SM Subramanian, vice-president, Rediff.com, says: “We found Nalini to be very professional and thorough in her approach. She is resourceful, responsive, pragmatic, and flexible with great domain knowledge.” Pradeep Kumar Jain, managing partner, Singhania & Co, says: “She is diligent, very professional and an excellent team player. Nalini is an asset and has great potential.” Besides this, Mishra has been empanelled as an arbitrator at the LCIA and appointed as vice president at India-Austria Bilateral Business Council, WICCI. She also writes articles on maritime laws and international arbitrations, and these have been published in various legal magazines. |
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SHIVANG MISHRA
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Mishra is a managing associate in the patents (engineering) department at LexOrbis. He is a versatile IP practitioner and passionately advocates for his client’s interests in securing and enforcing patent rights. He advises and counsels start-ups, incubation centres/VC funds, academicians, and Fortune 500 corporations, both domestic and international. Client engagement and technology know-how is central to successful IP rights and Mishra invests himself in securing the IP rights for his clients. He utilises LexOrbis’ efficient proprietary tools, SOPs to manage the relationship and work transparently so that his clients can see how their interests are being served at every stage of the process. Mishra is also well versed in securing patent rights in technologies such as artificial intelligence/machine learning, blockchain, IoT/wearable devices, gaming, etc. He has catered to international clients in solving complex and challenging legal problems in industry sectors including fintech, edtech, health-tech, robotics, telecom etc. In addition to drafting and prosecuting patents, Mishra is also known for successfully defending his client’s software related IP interest while appearing in several post/pre-grant oppositions, court proceedings. Mishra, who has also completed B.Tech in computer science, collaborates with various media channels to conduct IP awareness, and disseminate IP knowledge to new-age entrepreneurs, corporate houses. He has been a decorated IP practitioner in LexOrbis, committed to clients’ satisfaction and upliftment of the IP world. Mishra also advocates for women’s upliftment through various NGOs. |
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ANKUR SINGHI
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Singhi, who has been in practice since 2012, is currently a senior partner at SK Singhi & Co. His core areas of practice include corporate advisory, stressed asset advisory, insolvency, and restructuring, and advising on financial and taxation matters. He is an expert in the drafting and documentation of various deeds and documents like commercial contracts which include cross border, banking, and documentation. Among some of his ongoing matters, Singhi is defending the Union Bank of India in a matter where the petitioners claimed to be aggrieved and dissatisfied with the declaration of their account as a non-performing asset (NPA) by the bank. They filed a writ petition before the Calcutta High Court and challenged the paper advertisement issued by the bank with regards to the declaration of their account as NPA. Singhi is also representing his client Eden Infra Projects, one of the stakeholders in the JV company Eden Real Estates, where the majority of stakeholders resigned from the board through their nominee director, causing caused a complete deadlock of the functioning of the board of the company. Besides his legal career, Singhi has also completed his chartered accountancy and company secretary courses. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, the Bar Council of West Bengal and the Indian National Bar Association. “It is heartening to see Ankur’s growth over the years. He is very reassuring, well-articulated, and adds value to client mandates. Clients appreciate his straightforwardness and ability to think ‘out-of-the-box’, when the situation demands,” says S K Singhi, founder and managing partner, SK Singhi & Co. |
THE LIST
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ALB INDIA RISING STARS 2022 |
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AASTHA AMBARISH PRATEEK BAGARIA AANCHAL BASUR ANKUSH BEDI ARJIT BENJAMIN DIVYA BHARDWAJ ADITYA BHARGAVA NEHA DILIP BHOSALE SAUMYA BRAJMOHAN NAMRATA CHADHA SHUBHABRATA CHAKRABORTI ASHIMA CHALIA SAMEENA CHATRAPATHY KINSHUK CHATTERJEE DHARMENDRA CHATUR ADITY CHAUDHARY POOJA DADOO NAVEEN DAHIYA SUMEDHA DANG NAMITA DAS ABIR LAL DEY RITIKA GANJU SHUBHANGI GARG ROHAN K GEORGE NITIN GERA SIDDHI GHATLIA ANINDYA GHOSH ABHISHEK GUPTA SUGANDHA SOMANI GOPAL YASHWANT RAI GROVER KARTIKEYA GS ISH JAIN ROHIT JAIN PARTHSARATHI JHA VAIBHAV KAKKAR ILA KAPOOR ANKUR KHANDELWAL KUNAL KAUL PADMAJA KAUL |
SIMRAT KAUR CHARANYA LAKSHMIKUMARAN KUNAL LOHANI AURELIA MENEZES NALINI MISHRA SHIVANG MISHRA SALONI MODY ASHMI MOHAN KETAN MUKHIJA GOPAL KRISHNA MUNDHRA NAYANTARA NAG SAHIL NARANG SMITA PALIWAL LAKSHYA PARASHER SNEH PARIKH VRINDA PATODIA PUNEET PRABHAKAR AMIT PRAKASH SARIKA RAICHUR LAKSHMI RAMAN YASHVARDHAN RANA SATYAM RATHORE TUSHAR B RAUT NISHANTH RAVINDRAN ANKUR SANGAL NADIYA SARGUROH RAGINI SHAH NIHAL SHAIKH SOUMYA SHANKER ROHIT SHARMA SUSHANT SHETTY ABHINAV SHRIVASTAVA RADDHIKA SINGH ANKUR SINGHI ANKIT SINHA ACHUTHAN SREEKUMAR MEDHA SRIVASTAVA AHETESHAM A THAVER ARYA TRIPATHY TANYA VARMA |