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Our biggest asset is not our brand, nor the...

Our biggest asset is our people Suneeth

Katarki & Srinivas Katta, IndusLaw
Pallavi Saluja (/author/Pallavi Saluja) On March 9, 201 5 - 1 1 :1 0am
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Started in 2000 by Suneeth

Katarki, Srinivas Katta, Gomatam
Sridhar and Srinivasa Raghavan,
IndusLaw has grown to become a
75 lawyer, 11 partner firm with
offices across four cities.

Bar & Bench speaks with IndusLaw

Partners Suneeth Katarki and
Srinivas Katta on their decision to
set up IndusLaw, their successes
and failures, and their vision for the
firm.

The dream to build a professional firm

Suneeth: Even while we were studying in law school, we were quite keen on setting up something
on our own. This was in 1996 when there were hardly any firms that were truly professional.

We had all done our internships in different firms and what we saw there convinced us that all these
firms are not so professional. The more time we spent in each of our respective firms, the more we
realized that we really need to set up a good professional firm that works only on the basis of merit
and allows people to become partners based on merit. That was the dream with which we started
IndusLaw.
Srinivas: Initially we were there for the joy of practicing law. It wasnt about building the firm
although we always knew that we are going to be professional in the way we work and the way we
will make lawyers grow in the organization. The focus wasnt so much on building the firm but
enjoying work. The first 5-6 years was all about learning. The truth is the expression professional
takes on a different meaning as we grow and evolve.
Success and Failures
There have been a few success stories, some failures too.
Suneeth: It was in 2005 or 2006 when we started thinking of building a pan India presence. We
spoke to Gaurav Dani and Avimukt Dar in Delhi who had set up their own firm. In 2007, we merged
with them and called ourselves Indus G&D Law for a while. That was for the first foray into
building the firm.
Delhi was just the first stop. In 2008, they went on to set up the Hyderabad office, with a Mumbai
office coming up in 2012. In the meanwhile, they also managed to get Kartik Ganapathy who was
heading the private equity practice at Nishith Desai to join the firm in 2010. Ganapathy was not the
only big-ticket lateral hire. In 2012, Pramod Rao moved from ICICI Bank to IndusLaw. Priyanka
Roy then joined them from Alliance Legal. But less than a year later, Rao moved to Citibank as
General Counsel. Just last year, Nishant Singh, an Associate Partner at Khaitan & Co, Mumbai and
Ran Chakrabarti who had worked with Amarchand Mangaldas and a couple of London firms
including Ashurst and White & Case joined them.
Suneeth: There have been some failures too. Tapas Mishra, who joined us from PWC as a tax
partner in the Delhi office, had to leave the firm as he felt that his practice was not really
growing. In Bombay, we had Pramod Rao, who joined us from ICICI bank. He was a veteran in
ICICI but law firm practice is quite different from being an in-house counsel. I guess, it was also our
failure that we couldnt help him make the transition.
So there have been some good things and some not so good things.
Srinivas: On the people side, we have had a few people leave us over the years. We treat not being
able to retain people, or not being able to give them a platform to evolve and grow, as a failure.
The recipe for success
Suneeth: We follow various things at the firm. One, we have tried to be inclusive in the way we
have tried to build the firm. We make sure there is consensus and everyone is on board.
We have different committees including knowledge management, training, templates, and
publications. We have specific partners taking care of each committee but the key here is our
inclusion of associates also. We also empower the associates to run these committees with partners
only providing guidance. This helps them understand what it takes to build the firm and they also

grow professionally. We make sure that training percolates as well. At every stage we try to be very
inclusive and obviously we give more responsibilities as a person becomes a Senior Associate and a
Principal Associate. Thats also where they see themselves as growing just not in a practice of law
but beyond the practice of law what and how law firms look at things. People have been a great
asset.
Srinivas: As far as strategic decision-making is concerned, we strive to get consensus but as far
as implementation goes we dont believe that it is necessary to build consensus. We make the
distinction between what is an important decision and what is a day-to-day decision.
Each partner has an administrative role and in general we dont interfere in each others
departments. If I hit a roadblock or if I have a tough question, I will always bring it back to the
partnership and then we discuss.
We must also remember that at the end of the day we are a people business. However brilliant the
Partners are its useless unless there is a team. So if you ask us what is our biggest asset, its not our
brand, its not our Partners, its our people.
We want to be a very intense and cool place to work in. Usually those two terms dont go with each
other. As far as the work is concerned it must be intense but people must be happy to work and this
is what we have tried to build. Our HR team works hard to make the work-place fun and engaging
all year around.
Pure play equity model
This management philosophy may not be the only differentiating factor between IndusLaw and
other law firms. The equity distribution followed by this firm is also slightly different from the
traditional model.
Suneeth: We tend not to link equity with the revenue or say its revenue-based. We tend to look
at it in a more holistic way. Obviously equity is something where we want to give comfort in the
sense that we wont tell someone you are 5% equity today then drop them to 2% if they are not
billing or give them 10% if the billing is fantastic. We give percentages and we look at reviewing
every 3 years and we accordingly see if any change is required so that everyone feels they are
where they deserve to be, thats the over all approach.
Srinivas: The reason that we like to do it this way is there are 4-5 of us who do similar stuff. Like
say I get a 100 million dollar transaction and a 5 million dollar transaction; if we are not on a pure
equity model, whatever is the situation, I will take 100 million deal and pass on the 5 million deal.
So very often things actually work the other way round. We look at who is busier at that time, who
has greater expertise in that business vertical and accordingly pass on the transaction. We
obviously want the firm to put its best foot forward instead of me putting my best foot forward and
see how much money I take at end of the year. Very often you have partners passing on very large
transactions to other partners just because of convenience or may be because of expertise in a
particular vertical or for other reasons. Nobody thinks about the money in deciding what to do
ourselves and what to pass on. It actually keeps us very integrated and we keep supporting each
other. The incentives are completely aligned at this moment.

We are looking at the common goal of building the firm. So having a pure equity model is beneficial
at this stage, who knows 5 years from now we may change the model. We will never have eat what
you kill model but we might adopt a lock step or a modified lock step. I do think we will always
remain a pure play equity model at least in the near future.
Vision for the firm
Suneeth: The immediate vision is to grow and have larger presence in Bombay and Delhi.
Bangalore will continue to grow and hopefully will grow at a better rate.
"The long term simple vision is to build a people centric firm that to us means intelligent, hard
working AND happy lawyers translating to a great work product. We believe with a little effort the
rest will follow."
Srinivas: The aim is always be a multi disciplinary law firm and not a full service firm. We want
to be top 3 in each of the practice areas we operate in. It doesnt matter to us where our over all
rankings are but in each practice area we operate in we want to be in top 3.
What that translates to us as a firm in order of ranking is of a little consequence. At the end of the
day if you ask me how I would measure a law firm; it would really be the kind of work we do, the
kind of transactions we are involved in, the role we play in the transaction and the kind of clients
that engage us.
Generating revenue and billable hours
Suneeth: Really, the golden years for law firms were somewhere between 1999 to 2008 and
thats where we could command anything. Its no longer that. Since 2008, the economy has slowed
down. Obviously there are lots of firms that have built up lots of capacities and therefore they are
more willing to say I will want to keep people engaged, so I will reduce the fee if needed.
Clients say there is a firm, which takes lesser so revise the fee, even if its an old client. There is
much more fee pressure in the form of saying that we want a fixed amount or reduction in the
hourly rate, so all that has been happening.
I believe that if the economy starts growing 8 to 10% or more at least for the next few years, again
we may start loosing some of these price pressures. I suspect it will ease off for the next few years if
the economy grows.
The last year or so has been better. Hopefully with this will continue to be the case.
Liberalization of legal market
Suneeth: Its not in the priority so I dont think its going to happen in the next 3-4 years at
least.
Srinivas: There will be some kind of hybrid model where nobody will be allowed to practice
Indian law. You will be able to service international transactions like what Singapore do today. I
dont think you will ever find an economy which opens up legal service completely. At end of the
day you have to be qualified locally. It doesnt matter whether you are a local firm or a foreign firm.
So you will see, some kind of a hybrid 5 years or 8 years from now. When exactly is anybodys
guess.

Do law firms need to get more professional?

Suneeth: Certainly we do. There is a huge scope to get far more professional. Most law firms are
very poor in terms of how they use technology, how they do their knowledge management. So there
is huge scope to improve usage of IT and certainly when law firms have more revenue, they will
have more money to spare for getting more and more professional people for various aspects like
HR, technology, and knowledge management. We are all heading in the right direction.
Srinivas: I think in the last 5 years, the one thing, which law firms have evolved, is on project
management. 10 years ago project management probably did not exist in law firms in India. This is
one area where law firms have seen a lot of improvement.
Suneeth: But one thing will still remain; I think law firms will remain fragmented. You are not
going to have the big four, it has not happened worldwide. I dont see it happening at least not in the
next few years.
Staying away from Best friend relationship
Suneeth: We sort of shied away from that. There are some advantages and some disadvantages.
The disadvantage is that all other firms will start looking elsewhere. The advantages are of course
you will get some practices, technology etc. that will help the firm. We have always tried to have a
bunch of firms in different jurisdiction that we are comfortable working with. We have tried to work
with a bunch of people; we have not tried to cautiously build a specific best friend relationship.
Work life balance
Suneeth: Intense and cool are the two things that sums up our work like balance. It can be a 1415 hour day and you cant say that I will do only 10 hour day, it just doesnt work in massive
transactions where clients expect you to be on a call at 12 in the night or sometimes even later. Its
hard to say I will only do cutting edge work or say I will not open my laptop after 6pm or get on a
call after 6 pm.
The key is to make it intense but cool. You have a 14-hour day yet if you can manage to keep the
person vibrant and happy and not feel the pressure then yes you have achieved what you have
wanted.
Srinivas: This is a profession where the first 15 years you give it everything. So, if you want work
life balance you will not have a great career but that is a personal choice.
I remember the first 4 years when I used to work in a different law firm, I used to open the office at
7.30 in the morning every single day Monday to Friday and I would shut down the office at 11 pm
every single day. I used to do that even when I was a student. Today I can say after 18 years in the
profession, I can look at a work life balance, but I could not have thought of it then. Thats true for
everybody in this profession; put in the hard work in first 10-12 years and after that you can start
doing a lot of things.

Category :

Interv iews (/category /interv iews)

T ags:

In du sLa w (/t a g/i n du sl a w)

Sri n i v a s Ka t t a (/t a g/sri n i v a s-ka t t a )

Su n eet h Ka t a rki (/t a g/su n eet h -ka t a rki )

In t erv i ews (/t a g/i n t erv i ews)

Comments
HIMAN

(1)

March 9, 201 5 - 6:55pm

Great story . They should contribute their articles to Barandbench so that readers can benefit from
their thoughts and v iews.

reply (/comment/reply /1 2934/49259)

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