About · How we work
How we work
This page states the method: how a matter is taken on, how advice is arrived at and written, how it is executed, and what is left on the file at the close. It is a description of practice, not an offer of engagement. An advocate-client relationship arises only on a written engagement.
A matter, stage by stage
Conflict check, then scope
Before anything is discussed in substance, the parties and the subject matter are run against the practice’s conflict record. If the practice cannot act, it says so at that point and nothing further is taken. Where it can act, the matter begins with a written scope: the question to be answered or the relief to be sought, what will be delivered, by when, and which advocate does it. Work outside that scope is agreed in writing before it starts.
The issue identified before positions harden
The questions that decide a matter are usually settled before a notice is issued, a filing is made or a document is signed. The first working step is to state, in one paragraph, what the matter actually turns on (which provision, which limitation period, which document, which forum) and to separate that from what is merely being argued about.
Options, with the trade-off attached
Every route open on those facts is set out with what it costs in time, in record and in risk, and what it forecloses. Where a route is closed, weak or contested, that is stated at the outset with the provision or the authority that closes it. A route that depends on a proposition not yet settled by a court is identified as such.
A recommendation, and what it rests on
The advice states a position, the reasoning behind it, and the step that follows. It cites the bare Act, the rules, the notification or the judgment as reported, not a summary of them, so that the reader can check the source on the same page as the conclusion. The degree of confidence is stated where it is less than settled.
Execution against the agreed parameters
Drafting, filing, correspondence and appearance run against the scope agreed at the start, with the milestones recorded and the position on each reported as it moves. Where the facts change in a way that changes the advice, the advice is revised in writing rather than left to stand.
A record at the close
A matter closes with the deliverables, the advice rendered, the steps taken and what remains open recorded in writing, so that the file supports the client’s own governance and audit obligations afterwards.
What a piece of advice looks like
Advice leaves the practice in a settled form, whether it is a note to a board, an opinion on a single provision or a memorandum on a transaction. It opens with the answer, not with the background. The reasoning follows, then the authority relied on, then the step to be taken and by whom. Where a number governs the decision (a threshold, a period, a rate) it is worked out on the facts given rather than stated in the abstract, and the working is shown so that it can be checked or re-run on different facts.
The same standard applies across the file. An advisory note, an arbitration brief and a plaint are held to one standard of research, drafting and record-keeping, whatever the forum. The advocate who advises on a question is the advocate who argues it if it is contested, so the position taken in a document and the position taken before a forum are the same position.
The regulatory position, stated with the advice
Compliance is not treated as a separate exercise carried out after a course of action is chosen. Advice states the provision it rests on and the compliance obligations the course of action carries (filings, intimations, approvals, registers and the periods attached to each) so that the record of what was advised, and why, is available to the instructing entity afterwards.
Where a matter sits under more than one regulator, or under more than one state's law, the advice identifies each regime that applies and says where their requirements differ, rather than answering under one and leaving the rest to be discovered.
Confidentiality and how information is handled
Communications in a matter are held under the obligations that apply to an advocate under the Advocates Act, 1961 and the Bar Council of India Rules, and under the law of privileged professional communication.
- Matter papers are held on the practice's own systems and are not moved to a third-party service for processing without written instruction.
- Access within the practice is limited to the advocates and staff instructed on that matter.
- Sensitive matters (regulatory investigation, conduct of an officer, a disclosure made internally) are handled on a named-access basis recorded on the file.
- Client identity, the fact of an engagement and its subject matter are not published, quoted or used as an illustration, on this website or anywhere else.
The routes on which the practice is instructed
Instructions are taken in three forms. The terms of each, including the basis on which work is charged, are recorded in the engagement letter for that matter and are not published.
- A single matter
- One question, one transaction or one proceeding, scoped and closed on its own terms. Most instructions begin this way.
- Panel empanelment
- Banks, non-banking financial companies, asset reconstruction companies and other institutions that instruct repeatedly may empanel the practice under their own empanelment process. The scope of the panel, the categories of work it covers and the terms on which it runs are recorded in the empanelment documentation and in the engagement letter.
- Standing advisory
- A continuing arrangement for a board, a company secretary or an in-house legal function, covering advice on recurring questions, review of documentation and notice of changes in law that affect the instructing entity.
The limits of what is on this page
- Nothing on this website, and no communication before an engagement letter is signed, is legal advice or creates an advocate-client relationship.
- The practice advises on Indian law. Where a matter turns on the law of another country, that question is referred to counsel qualified there, and the advice says which part rests on that referral.
- The practice does not advise on a question it has not been instructed on, and does not extend an opinion given on one set of facts to another set of facts.
- Where a matter requires an outcome the law does not permit, the advice says so in those terms.
Where the work is done
The practice works from its offices at Bengaluru, Mumbai, New Delhi. Addresses, and how a meeting at any of them is arranged, are on the offices page. The forums before which the advocates of the practice appear are listed on About, and on each advocate's own page under People.