As the Covid-19 has slowed down the hearing in courts, it has become difficult to expect justice on time. The courts have started online, which is not possible for everyone to attend. The cases have been postponed, canceled, or rescheduled due to the pandemic. The lawyers too have faced crisis due to the closure of courts. Many law firms are trying their best to serve the public.
One such law firm is Versatile Law Partners that have been facing challenges due to Covid-19 pandemic. But the firm is trying its best to get justice for their clients. The firm is founded and managed by Advocate Vidya Adsule. Advocate Vidya has more than 30 years of experience in law and has always given her best for the clients.
In the following interview, Vidya shared with us about her entire journey and motivation to build Versatile Law Partners. Vidya also shared how Covid-19 pandemic impacted her firm and how she overcame the challenges. She also briefed us about her future goals and a few tips on how she aspires to be one of the legal enthusiasts.
Following are the highlights of the interview:
Enlighten us with your professional journey into the legal paradigm.
Having completed my graduation in Commerce in 1985, I had a job offer with Lady Ratan Tata Institute as Accounts Clerk with a salary which was considered as ‘Abundant’ at that point of time. However, that didn’t stop me from pursuing law, and I completed my LLB degree in 1988 post which I got the Sanad to practice from Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa in 1989. While pursuing LLB, I was being criticized in my circle for not having taken the job at LRTI. However, now that I look back upon my 32 years of journey, it was one of the best career decisions I could ever make.
While Pursuing LLB, I worked with Senior Lawyers such as Solicitor Arvind Nagvekar & Co. and Govt. Pleader Mahabaleshwar Morje. I gained considerable knowledge in the field of operations of various Courts, respective jurisdiction and applicable laws implementations for enforcement of civil rights including the modalities and various legal aspects of non-litigation practice like property /real estate law and conveyancing, drafting commercial documents, and conducting of due diligences.
After gaining preliminary and basic knowledge in the real estate and property laws, I joined a Developer by the name of ‘Our Town’ as Legal Advisor in 1990. Having a decade of stint in land acquisition, I had a short stint of almost 1 year at ‘Ahuja Constructions,’ where I handled 25 + redevelopment projects and handled legal aspects of development on MHADA and CIDCO allotted plots to Societies.
The first of my corporate break came in 2001 when I was offered the role of Legal Manager at ICICI Bank. There, I was primarily responsible for formulating legal policies and procedures, drafting loan documentations for 20 + products and due diligence to check compliances of policies rolled out by business.
Within six months of joining ICICI Home Finance, I was diagnosed with esophagus cancer, however this did not hamper my passion for work, and I continued working daily while undergoing treatment for almost 6 months. Within a span of two years, I got double promotion to Chief Manager and was also awarded as the best performer in Legal Risk and Policy Department.
Based on the above achievements, I was transferred to the Corporate Legal department to handle legal aspect of the entire Retail & Liability Business, where I got rolled out standardization of the legal documents in the retail mortgage finance business and created various legal process manuals. For this, I received the Best legal deal of the year award in 2005.
Having taken a good amount of experience in the mortgage finance, banking, and corporate legal field, I joined Kotak Mahindra Investments in a bid to gain exposure in the Private Equity paradigm as Vice President Legal in 2005. Later, I returned into ICICI fold (as VP Legal & Compliance), although this time it was ICICI Venture, a 100% subsidiary of ICICI Bank.
In January 2012, I joined Wadia Group’s Entity Bombay Dyeing and handled legal aspects of their 500 + acres FE Dinshaw Lands at Thane. In 2014, I left Bombay Dyeing and joined Hammurabi & Solomon a Delhi based law firm to set up their Mumbai Office. I was with them till July 2015.
Thereafter in August 2015, I shifted to Pune and joined Kolte Patil Group, a listed entity to Head the legal aspects of Kolte Patil Group. I was with them till March 2016. In April 2016, I joined JP Infra Group at Mumbai, handled procuring 70 + acres of lands for them at Mitra Road. I worked with them till December 2017.
In Jan 2018, I joined RNA Group as Sr. General Counsel (Legal & Compliance). I was with them till 2019 January. Thereafter in January 2019, I joined Ashwin Sheth Group for short period of time till May 2019 and in those 5 months of period.
However, while doing each of assignment in various real estate group, I was doing my independent practice and realized my potential being not fully utilized in the job assignment those came to me. Hence, I took a decision to quit the assignments with parallel in-house job assignments Developers and started focusing on my independent Firm practice since 2019.
Awards & Recognitions:
I was selected as:
- Top 100 Powerful Women in Law in India in 2017-18 by Worldwide Intellectual Professional Forum
- ‘Star Women in Law’ by Legal Era in 2018-19
- Best Legal Head of the Year by Marketing Mavrick in 2019
- Listed in Top 100 Lawyers to be followed on LinkedIn (Worldwide)
https://blog.ipleaders.in/100-lawyers-one-should-follow-on-linkedin/
What motivated or inspired you to be in the legal space?
As a young lady, I was highly ambitious and refused to settle for less. Further, I loved challenges and the same could not be offered by the monotonous job offering post my commerce graduation. Over and above having stayed in a chawl, I noticed that the common man was always deprived of a lot of their legal rights and wanted to make a difference by helping such strata of people in whatever way possible.
Kindly talk about the various or specialized legal offerings, solutions, or services that you provide to your clientele.
My firm is Multi-Service Law Firm along with Pro Bono Practice for the needy. Our areas of practice are:
- Banking & Finance,
- Real Estate
- Insolvency & Bankruptcy Securitization Law
- Private Equity, Corporate & Commercial
- Consumer & Media Laws
- Litigation & Dispute Resolution (Civil as well Criminal)
- Giving solutions to day-to day legal functions of Clients
- End-to-end Contract management
- Servicing Individual clients including the Pro Bono cases.
As a lawyer, what challenges have you faced in this ongoing Covid-19 pandemic?
Although, the Work from Home Scenario has not affected the non-Lit practice, it is pertinent to note that there has been a substantial reduction in quantum of assignments as the number of deals that are taken ahead for closure have substantially reduced. Mainly, due to the general psyche among the entrepreneurs/promoters’ businesses to save on their reserves rather than investing or using it for capital expenditure. This has been predominantly seen with the MSME clients mainly on account of the operations and functioning been affected due to Pandemic and at times leading to reduction in the profits. Therefore, survival has become the priority over, growth and expansion.
I have faced the challenges like administration of work and litigations due to restrictions imposed the quantum of deliverable have affected. However, I have coped up by being on toes to take care of all urgent and important work assignments of the clients. Furthermore, the quantum of work has reduced though the efficiency of work and cost of running firm has considerably reduced.
How technological advancements in the legal space has helped you in overcoming those challenges?
Currently most of Courts continue online and it is a boon for lawyers as there is cost reduction, increase in efficiency and firm can handle multiple matters in multiple courts sitting at Office. Thus, it has led to scaling of our firm practice.
Due to everything moving to the online mode, the cost of operations has substantially reduced as one can work remotely and conduct meetings through Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, etc. In today’s time, all you need is a good internet connection, and you are good to go even work from the remotest location. One of the major things that has been positively benefited is, time management due to zero travel time and all other unnecessary disturbances. However, work life balance to an extent has affected, as at times it becomes around the clock working expectations by the Client and law firms.
In fact, this has promoted a lot of new legal business ideas giving rise to a number of websites which help in the execution of the documents in the online mode, however the other challenge is, if too much of data is online, the hackers at large will have the opportunity to adversely use such data. So, its facilitation by technology use with exposure to such risks.
How legal practice has evolved over the period of time? Are there any significant changes?
Legal profession is an important pillar for administration of justice and if it is not well-organized, court will not be to administer and deliver justice effectively. Legal practice from the time I started career in profession and as it is today, have considerably changed and major changes are seen in following aspects:
- Research was difficult earlier as it was more manual and now multiple legal search engines which throw cases in just a matter of seconds are available. This is a big facilitator to know the precedents and rulings of different courts.
- In earlier days, Steno with Typewriter was must. However, since the use of Computers multiple assignments of drafting can be parallel handled instead of typing gestation period and the saving system has facilitated the proof reading which was earlier by generation of prints for proof reading and correction and nowadays one can do on the computer itself.
- Access to Senior Counsel and to know their whereabouts earlier was a big challenge as one resource was tally required to follow them. Now due to cell phones and messaging system at the spur of the moment the co-ordination can happen.
- In litigation in almost all courts, the case status is available online whereas, earlier it had to be done manually by visiting respective court or its record department. This allows the lawyers to save the wait period and efficiently use the same for other assignments closure.
- Awareness amongst new breed of lawyers is more as the Legal Media/ journalism has emerged as a big facilitator.
- Introductions of various systems like Online stamping/franking of documents and online registration of documents, online searches of title, online availability of revenue records, entity record online, filing of compliances by various entities and online application for registration system introduced, has come in a big way to facilitate the efficient handling of legal assignments.
What advice would you give to the aspiring legal enthusiasts who are willing to become lawyers and step into the legal space today?
My advice to aspiring legal enthusiasts would be to pursue law ONLY if you have passion for it and do not take it for the sake of no other alternative to them. Secondly, being from eminent law schools along with good grades in law school may be the basic requirement for the entry in niche law firms or corporates.
However, the practical knowledge of operations of the Court, lots of efforts are required to be put in analyzing the cases and formulating the cause of action to know the best available course of action permissible under applicable laws. Trial Courts exposure is MUST both for civil and criminal areas practice aspirants. Depth knowledge of the core laws like Indian Constitution Corporate Laws, Regulations governing different businesses and specific field related laws expertise is required to be developed.
In practice, there is a bigger gestation period involved. So, the success can be achieved only through perseverance, hard work and full commitment. However, for In-house Roles in the beginning is the learning period. Hence, though the emoluments may be low but the aspirant needs to be taking such assignment opportunity where there is lot of technical legal work. More learning and growth come when one puts full commitment. Also, In-house law aspirant needs to learn to facilitate business and cannot merely flag legal issues and sit quiet. They must learn skills to find a way out by putting at work, the risk mitigation mechanism.
Initially, in both roles independent practice and in-house assignment, one needs to have lots of patience, hunger for knowledge and needs to be a voracious reader and needs to keep themselves abreast of all amendments and updates in legal field by which they will have edge. Such approach will help in desired growth of the aspirant into an eligible legal professional is my candid advice.
Where does your endeavors lead you to in the coming years? Kindly talk about your future scenario.
Since I have set up an independent law firm, primary focus will on the growth and expansion of the same, not just in terms of clients but also in terms of practice areas and geographies. Further, I am already doing a mentor role for lots of junior legal professionals and have formulated various social media knowledge sharing groups for guiding them, wherever possible.
This is one of the aspects I will continuously be doing. Further, I am also sharing common practices and job assignments availability with various firms/ organizations through formation of various social media groups which I will continue to do to achieve: ‘Giving Back to Society.’
Further, I intend writing books in the legal domain specially related to Drafting and Conveyancing, Corporate Laws and Legal Fiction which is underway.
What is the current scenario of the Indian Legal Space according to you?
Current scenario of Indian Legal Space looks very promising. Various redundant laws have been scrapped, while some laws have been consolidated into new code. Additionally, many New Laws have been introduced due to evolution of economy as well of businesses. Since the businesses and economies are getting modernized with new forms of risk coming into the play, the laws are also in parallel evolving and changing to address such new challenges.
The new generation of the populace in India are more aware of the legal rights and hence, lawyers are consulted even for the smallest of the issues, which has in turn helped the growth of legal profession.
Since India is a Developing Country, the Legal System will keep evolving to keep pace with the growth of the economy and it will happen with time, as the current times are unpredictable post covid, will see a lot of change in law enforcement processes and justice delivery systems in India provided there is a political will to pass some laws, which will create lots of ruckus and unrest for e.g., Uniform Civil Cod, etc.
