Seated right next to India’s financial capital, Pune is attracting a genre of legal service providers that understand the uniqueness of its position and the clientele they serve. Katherine Abraham reports
In the past few years, Pune, the education hub of India, has swiftly made progress adapting and adopting the growth of industries, especially the automotive sector, with some of the best and biggest Indian and foreign brands seeking to develop this retirees’ paradise into a mini version of Mumbai, its larger neighbour located just 152km away.
With a steady flow of income from various sectors, the need for quick and cost-efficient legal services is also evident. India Business Law Journal spoke to Pune-based law firms to find out how the legal landscape of the city is evolving.
Cyril Shroff, managing partner of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) – one of the country’s largest firms, spoke to IBLJ about the city on his recent visit. “Pune is very different compared to a lot of other tier-2 cities because, in some ways, it is kind of like an extension of Mumbai,” says Shroff.
“There are very large corporate groups like the Bajaj group, or the Bharat Forge group, or the Thermax group, or the Kirloskars. So, they could have been in Mumbai, but just happened to be in Pune,” he says.
“I don’t see any qualitative difference between the kind of work that we would do for [Pune clients] and that we would with any other Mumbai client.”
Radhika Subhash, managing partner at JCSS Law, adds: “Pune is developing as a prominent city with industry players in the manufacturing, auto and IT renewables sectors, and is seeing a lot of foreign investment, so having a locally present law firm certainly helps support such businesses locally.”
Regarding their decision to open a branch in Pune, Obhan & Associates, a Delhi-based law firm, weighed up both personal and professional factors. “We were looking at places that we want to expand to, a different office within India,” says lead partner for the Pune branch, Vrinda Patodia. “The managing partner is Essenese Obhan, [and while] he is not from Pune, he studied in Pune and completed his engineering studies here, which gave him a connection with the city.”
The firm found it useful that Patodia, one of its oldest serving partners, was also planning to return for personal reasons, and so Obhan & Associates found a base in Pune.
“It’s an untapped market because, if you see Pune in general, till a couple of years ago anyone who wanted legal services would reach out to Bombay, or to one of the CA [chartered accountancy] firms,” says Patodia.
“There were very few standalone corporate firms, litigation firms and individual practitioners, but a professional setup was just not available.”
At a micro level, 26-year-old managing partner at Dhan Legal & Co, Sanjana Suri, agrees. Suri opened her firm at the age of 25, swapping internships for a decision to go solo. She chose the area of Kharadi over a central location in Pune. “I noticed that there are around five or six law firms in Kharadi who work in family law and notary services,” she says.
“We would receive texts for legal services and help on social media platforms like WhatsApp, because of the shortage of firms there.” Kharadi, being a commercially and financially sound space, had scope for corporate legal services, enabling Suri to practise where her primary clientele was based.
Jacqueline Aikin, a former senior in-house counsel and now a partner at JCSS Law, was convinced that Pune could be a good fit for an independent establishment. As someone who moved from a tier-1 city, Aikin highlights a demand-supply issue in legal services, and concludes that Pune has more to offer.
“There were firms here and there was work, but there was no one who could satisfy the requirement, which is why, when I met Aaron Solomon [managing partner of Solomon & Co] first, a solicitor firm based out of Bombay, and they showed interest in setting up in Pune, I felt that it was a good match,” she says.
Aikin says her transition may have been perceived as odd and inconvenient at the time because “you don’t go from in-house to a law firm after working 10-12 years and then you don’t do that in a tier-2 city because people think you’re crazy”. Later, she moved from Solomon & Co to JCSS Law.
Another lawyer who finds Pune a more lucrative deal than Mumbai, or his hometown of Baramati (another tier-2 city), is Anuj Shah, a commercial disputes and arbitration lawyer.
Initially, Shah decided to plant the seed of his firm, Shraman Law Associates, in two tier-2 cities, Pune and Baramati. “I come from a small village, which is around 12 kilometres from Baramati,” says the founding partner. “I studied in Pune, and later I briefly tried to explore the option of simultaneously establishing my practice in Baramati and Pune, dividing the week equally between the two cities.
“I was not very comfortable practising in the [Baramati] courts. The scope was limited and the way of practice was not up to the mark, so eventually I began to concentrate on Pune and Mumbai.”
So, what do these partners identify as the core challenges and strengths of tier-2 cities?
“Pune is very auto-driven, auto manufacturing, engineering, and that is the work I had done for Suzlon [as in-house counsel],” says Aikin. “That was my comfort zone, so I did a lot of work with manufacturing auto companies and EVs,” she says, adding that one of the reasons to leverage her practice at the time was the introduction of production linked incentives (PLIs) for EVs.
“It was a very difficult journey initially, because people would ask uncomfortable questions like, ‘why should we come to you? … There are the locals who are doing it’.” She says that JCSS found an edge with its “global exposure”.
Legal culture
Patodia, who has also been leading her firm for the past few years, says: “Be it SMEs or even slightly larger units, one of the challenges when we got here was to try and educate people about the need to have someone provide them with legal services.”
The lead partner for Obhan adds that, for a lot of companies and smaller family offices or family setups, “spending money to get legal services on a contract was still not feasible, or they just didn’t want to because they tried to do everything in-house”, or adopted the attitude of “let’s just take a draft from a CA or a company secretary”.
Costs were centre stage for a long time. Aikin says sometimes a new client will say: If you want us to pay, we’ll go and pay in Bombay, so why should we come to you?
“And that’s when we had to start with, you know, building it up through retainers, showing them the kind of work we do, and building it through that trust, through the work that I could say I got my team to do,” she says.
Aikin highlights her local advantage. “If I speak as an individual, I have an edge because I am from Pune. I have been in-house and I have been on the other side, where I worked internationally with firms in collaboration,” she says.
“Understanding that the mindset of Pune is very different from the mindset of Mumbai, or even other tier-1 cities” is an unmissable factor. “Mumbai is quick with transactions on the table. Proposals are sent across, and the work is done.”
With Pune, she says the culture is different. While Mumbai is more direct, Pune indulges in a more consultative way of work, where she says the firm discusses its approach, regularly asking for feedback through questions: “We are thinking of doing this. What are your thoughts?” This creates transparency and adds depth to the process, involving the client in the process.
“They will get that one transaction after you’ve done enough NDAs, and the contracts and advice,” she says, “and sometimes you don’t even charge for it.” But, she adds, a long-time client has been gained.
Collaborations
Comparing tier-1 and tier-2 firms, Haroon Asrar, a partner at Solomon & Co, says: “Clients in tier-2 cities often find local firms more approachable and cost-efficient, as their fee structures tend to be more budget-friendly.
“Larger tier-1 firms may occasionally take on smaller matters, but their operating costs usually make their services premium-priced and cause them to be less practical for clients.”
This leaves little room for direct competition. “There is no conflict really,” says CAM’s Shroff. “I think we can achieve much more by working together.
“I think there is more to be gained by working together, and we know where to stop and where we should let go. So long as you are mutually respectful, it works very well. There are firms that would like to work with us, even in Pune, and there is no problem, because it’s horses for courses,” says Shroff, acknowledging also that Pune has grown dramatically.
Suri, at Dhan Legal, agrees. “It’s nice to have two separate firms just collaborating on a case-by-case basis.”
Obhan & Associates, however, is an exception. “We don’t have that much opportunity to work with [tier-1 firms],” says Patodia.
“Very rarely have we, and this is not restricted or limited to Pune, even our offices in Delhi, very rarely do we work with other law firms.” That said, the firm is flexible and open to working with firms when necessary.
JCSS’ managing partner, Subhash, says: “For bigger transactions, clients are still referring to bigger firms outside the city, but that is slowly changing as we build confidence in our clients through our work; to a certain extent there is resource constraint, too, but we hope to overcome that soon.”
Aikin adds: “Of course, we see ourselves as doing good enough work to be competing with the firms that are coming in, for sure. We’re very content doing what we’re doing, and have collaborated with JCSS Consulting, given that JCSS Law was previously Radhika Barian Associates.
“I’m not only giving [clients] legal services, but I can call my secretarial team, my tax team, and I can clarify multiple questions, ideas and suggestions, under this one roof. So definitely, collaboration is the way to grow.”
Shah, at Shraman, says: “There’s a lot of collaboration happening with the regional law firms or independent advocates having collaboration with tier-1 cities. I think it’s good.
“For example, someone sitting in Delhi would have a matter filed against them in Pune and, for them, it’s very difficult to find a local counsel. In that case, they are approaching a bigger tier-1 firm in Delhi that further collaborates with a law firm in Pune, making it easier to retain the client without losing their trust and gaining a worthy collaborator in the process.”
Mergers and takeovers
Asrar, a partner at Solomon & Co, says: “The acquisition of boutique firms by larger firms can bring in broader resources, wider client servicing capacity and institutional stability.
“However, there is a legitimate concern that the fine-tuned specialisation and personal attention that define boutique practices may get diluted in the process. The outcome largely depends on whether the larger firm integrates, preserves and expands its niche expertise at the time of acquisition.”
Shah, Suri and Aikin say collaborations work, while takeovers and mergers do not.
“I am open to collaboration, not a merger or takeover, because I want to keep my own identity and that is the reason,” says Shah.
Aikin agrees. “We’re very happy doing what we do. We don’t want to get taken over by anyone.”
Suri who in a short while has been able to connect and gain international clients in the US and Ireland, shares this opinion: “I would never merge with any firm because I have my own identity.”
Tech and tier-2
Post-pandemic, law firms have had to adopt and adapt to a new digital life. With tier-1 cities scrambling to employ foreign AI software and tools, do smaller players also have an equal opportunity minus the additional expense?
“Technology has emerged as a decisive tool in the legal profession,” says Solomon’s Asrar. “Tools for research, drafting, case management and even virtual hearings have cut down time and overheads significantly. This allows smaller firms to deliver competitive, efficient services, narrowing the traditional gap between them and larger counterparts.”
Patodia observes: “At the beginning of the AI curve, everyone was a little concerned because of confidentiality and data privacy, especially of clients, and as a firm we were first opposed to the thought of AI.” She adds that the fears were not unjustified, particularly with open source AI gaining prominence.
The firm, though, has since warmed to the idea. “We’ve still not adopted it wholeheartedly, but we’re in the phase of doing that, or trying to do that at least, because I feel like it’s required. It just gives you a good starting base, which you can then work on without having spent 100 man-hours as opposed to 10.”
The perils of ChatGPT have not yet been mitigated. Shah says: “I have a strong objection to law students or new law graduates and interns blindly depending upon AI or ChatGPT without doing their homework or cross-checking the facts.”
This attitude is not limited to lawyers. Aikin recalls how a client brought in a ChatGPT draft to save their costs from paying for a well-written professional draft. “It looked beautiful when we started, but we had to do the entire draft from scratch,” she says. “So that’s what AI does when you don’t use it properly.”
Taking a cue from this, the firm decided to adopt AI formally in its ESG practice to see if it could do better. “We’re doing ESG consulting, and we’ve tied up with a platform which is powered by AI. That’s an amazing platform because you’re consulting, you’re dealing with so much data, and AI is interpreting that data in a manner that five different people from different backgrounds will understand. So it is an enabler.”
Recruitment
Aikin understands the idea of local legal talent and believes that theory without adequate practice can be detrimental to young talent, who may assume that a one-month internship from a tier-1 firm could be their ticket to a permanent job.
“If you’ve done just research for that one month, I’m not sure how fantastic that is,” she says. “Our interns … do their work. So, we’ll give them projects to help us with live research.
“I have done these prolonged internships where you’re coming to learn, you’re coming to do a certain project, it’s going to take three months or more, to get something out of it. We’ve continued to retain and groom that talent.”
Patodia agrees. “I like seeing the boutique firms operate because it gives a lot of opportunity for freshers, for students. My entire career has been at a smaller law firm.”
Speaking about local legal talent emerging from Pune, Cyril Shroff says: “We recruit more from tier-2 cities and tier-2 colleges than from tier-1. They’re hungrier. They’re much hungrier. They have to prove a point. They try harder.
“We [CAM] recruit a lot from ILS [Law College], for example, or from Symbiosis. Our head of competition, Avaantika [Kakkar], was from ILS Pune. So Pune, I think, is different. [But] I wouldn’t say the same about some of the other tier-2 cities.”
So, where do these lawyers see Pune in 10 years? Aikin says the city has received sustained interest owing to the presence of IT, defence and automotive industries, and factories that have mushroomed over time.
“We have always courted the interest of the Germans and now we are receiving interest from Japan as well,” she says. “Pune is definitely on the growth path and when you have so much business here, you are going to need lawyers and other professionals.”
Suri notes that, as with most parts of the country, “the language impediment exists in Pune, too”, making it difficult for people like her, who may not be fluent with Marathi, to appear in courts.
Could this hamper Pune’s growth trajectory? The young managing partner says that if the legal talent focuses on communication skills, bettering themselves and using their contacts well, that will help them grow as future talent.
Patodia concludes: “If you look at just the kind of firms it’s attracting, there’s always been that potential there. Pune has always defined itself on a map when it comes to the broader legal landscape, and the proximity to Mumbai just makes it easy for you to tap into clients and potential there also.
“There’s never a lack, and with this city growing, there are always going to be law firms now. They want to be here and stay here.”
