Interview with a well known Advocate & Corporate Lawyer Mr. Adesh Jain

Adesh Jain  is an advocate and corporate lawyer with about 30 years of Standing at Bar. His twitter ID is @adeshjain8.

After greeting the interviewer on behalf of E-Justice India began the interview of Mr. Adesh Jain.

Starting the interview Mr. Jain introduced himself to the readers. He said that he is not extremely active in practice anymore and is offering advisory service to companies and  select clients and does a lot of  pro bono work. He did his graduation in 1987 from the Campus Law Centre in Delhi University. He was an Addl. standing counsel for the Indian Government in the Delhi High Court. He further talked about his In-house experience in various companies as Times of India, Oberoi Hotel Group and several other multinational companies. He did supervise companies on corporate, civil and criminal sides and is currently a corporate commercial lawyer.

1. Interviewer: Who is the inspiration, role model of the life?

Interviewee: My inspiration shifted from time to time in accordance with the stages of my life. At one point in life it was Nani Palkhivala, the courtroom genius who was a master of taxation and constitutional law.

2-Interviewer: Why did you choose law as the profession?          

Interviewee: Basically it excited me and when I was a student, I was a believer in justice and wanted to help people in need and decided to take criminal law practice. Initially I fought for pro bono matters also and with the shift in time I migrated from civil and criminal to corporate law practice. For me law is basically very exciting subject but provided that the person is willing to work hard and to wait since the returns take time. In law you need to wait for a reasonable time in comparison with other profession such as engineering, management etc.

3- Interviewer: What cases do you generally handle and what percentage of your work is devoted to the practice area?

Interviewee: Currently I am  little inactive but I have very actively handled civil matters which related to property, intellectual property, consumer matters, mergers and acquisitions and other civil matters, disputes, arbitrations and did reasonable amount of criminal practice in my initial days. Any lawyer should have an all encompassing area and it pays  to have understanding of  as many facets of law as possible.

4- Interviewer: How did you gain the expertise needed to be an arbitration law expert and as a corporate lawyer?

Interviewee: You need to continuously refresh the knowledge of law. The young lawyers only understand the way of pleading and how the arguments are going. They need to go a little behind and understand the semantics. One should not be confined only to the files he is dealing with. The curiosity should be more to understand the area of law one is dealing with.

5-  Interviewer: In your views why arbitration is an important part of legal system?          

Interviewee: Arbitration is important but beside it there are other alternate dispute relation mechanism systems. Mediation is getting institutionalised nowadays, in Delhi High Court, mediation cell is established and a lot of issues are solved through it. Arbitration has enforceability and there have been a lot of changes in it. Through various judgments of court arbitration has become almost as good as civil dispute which is subject to some kind of appeal. Arbitration has a long way to go in India and it is not yet that mature.

6-Interviewer: If you had to pick one skill that is most important to have as an arbitrator or corporate lawyer, what would you say it is?

Interviewee: You need to have an eye for detail since it is very important. The fact should be in your mind for always, when you going through files, since you never know when it comes handy for you.

7- Interviewer: Can you talk about the time when your decision making skill played an important role?

Interviewee: There are a lot of times. As a corporate lawyer a lot of matters came where people were ready to spend lakhs and lakhs of money for the filing of case or for the argument to go on. But then I took the call that such cases can be solved outside the court. We can just do some extensive correspondence and tell them there are provisions in law and convince them that this is the right way and there is no need to go to the court. Pre-litigation management was something where my decision making skills came very handy. Legal Strategy is another area where decision making comes very handy.

8-Interviewer: Does every arbitrator have a different arbitration philosophy?

Interviewee: Yes of course. Every judge or arbitrator has different sect of biasness based on his way of understanding.

9- Interviewer: What are the areas to focus during graduation to have a edge, which people generally ignores which every lawyer must also keep in mind  in the initial days of practice?

Interviewee: Nowadays in the five year course there are opportunities to do internship. I strongly emphasize this area. Try to find out if you know a lawyer in relation to the subject you have learned in the specific year so that practical subject of law could be understood and by the time you graduate you have the knowledge of the ways of implementation. Identify your choice and keep working to identify the area of your choice. Try to understand the various sections and what those are trying to say in all. Enhance practical knowledge along with theoretical knowledge.

10-Interviewer: What would you like to suggest to those students who will go further in arbitration?

Interviewee: When you go for arbitration, it is as good as any other legal knowledge from the court’s perspective except that under the arbitration law the procedure may not be as rigid as in Civil Courts. There can be a shortcut mechanism but the way one lead evidence or submit pleadings are almost similar. Any good civil lawyer can be a good arbitration lawyer.

Lastly he was asked to present his view on E-Justice India, to which he gladly replied that he is very happy that an initiative has been taken to spread the word and help lawyers and youngsters to get the help of seniors in the field so that the young lawyers who do not have any godfathers or mentors have an idea how to go on it.