Team size: Six 

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense? 

To re-emphasise compliance and create a culture of ethics and compliance, we organised a compliance week for all office and field employees. This innovative initiative covered 3000+ employees through one hour in person and virtual trainings. During the week, core principles were re-emphasised through digital products. This came as no cost, was appreciated by global group leaders and is in discussion for adoption in other international jurisdictions.  

This is in addition to our Monthly Code of Conduct Newsletter, focusing on compliance topic sand announcing the torchbearer who demonstrated ethical behaviour.  

We internally designed an intranet for legal, compliances, secretarial and high value contract with ready-to-use templates, guidance notes on critical business topics, standard operating procedures under each tool, escalation matrix and directory for our local lawyers attached to each office and branch, wherever we operate. This was appreciated by the business as this came at no cost and helped us in reducing TAT and the duplication of work and focus on strategic projects.  

The legal team worked on setting up internal compliance process by creating and customising repository of legal registers state wise totalling to 24 locations and this came at no cost.  

We took up a project to digitise records. This helps us to take regular updates on all litigation matters and provided transparency while reducing person dependency for business continuity.  

A regional ESG contest was organised by the global legal and compliance team. I had the opportunity to be the project lead for the Asia Pacific region wherein we jointly contributed 9500+ hours. This included collaborating with CSR department to impart trainings, volunteering for social causes, blood donation camp, and e-waste drive, among others.  

What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in? 

We consider the legal department as more than a support function, and act as business enablers. We have been achieving more than 150% recovery target in last three years. Major matters include winning a 13-year-old matter filed by a litigant builder’s frivolous claim of 123 Crores against our claim of six Lakhs, where we won all appeals from High Court to Supreme Court. We recovered five times the claimed amount, including the litigation cost of 20 Lakhs.  

We initiated international arbitration for 18 Crores. With strong claims and defence to their counter claim, we settled and secured 100% payment for Schindler India. Through legal recourse, we got a six Crore bank guarantee while the matter was being contested.  

While carrying risk assessment and cost benefit analysis, we closed consumer matters for the benefit of the organisation, safeguarding the business’ reputation and cutting litigation costs. This was done in collaboration with operations to meet customers and arrive at an amicable settlement.  

If you had to give advice to an aspiring in-house lawyer or general counsel, what would it be and why? 

As a legal team, especially in-house counsel, it is important to think operationally while wearing legal hats. This will help us to create a relationship of trust and reliability with the business team. It is further imperative to have visibility by contributing to profits and transition from support function to business enablers.  

As a legal team, one has to emulate the 5 R’s – resolve, rigour, resourcefulness, reliability, and reasonability.