Mr. Tanuj Sud is a Partner and Founder of firm Gravitas Legal. He completed his Bachelors of Laws (LL.B.) from Cardiff University, United Kingdom in 2004 and his B.A. (Hons.) in Economics from Delhi University in 2001. He is enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi. He has previously worked with Dua Associates, Delhi from September 2004 – May 2007 and June 2008 – December 2009 and with SJ Berwin LLP, London from June 2007 – May 2008. Thereafter, Mr. Tanuj Sud was the head of Project Finance and Infrastructure Practice at Khaitan Sud & Partners until recently post which he co-founded Gravitas Legal. His areas of focus are Banking and Finance, Projects and General Corporate Advisory.
To explore more about the firm, his role and thoughts, an interview with him is as follows:
The primary area of practice for the firm has been Banking & Finance. However, over the past one year, firm has been doing a lot of work in the Corporate Commercial and Dispute Resolution areas. Is the Firm transitioning from a multi-service niche practice to a full service firm? If yes, is the transition planned or intentional?
We have established ourselves as one of the leading players in the country in the Banking and Finance practice area. With the help of our deep and functional expertise and wide-ranging experience within this domain, we have successfully closed a variety of transactions (of all ticket sizes) in this space ranging from regular corporate loans to heavily syndicated project finance and structure finance deals. With some stress being faced across industry sectors, dispute resolution has germinated as a practice area as part of a natural evolution cycle for us and we are scaling up our offerings in this area. Due to our established credibility and entrenchment with clients, increasingly, existing clients and new have started approaching us for practice areas other than the ones we were previously best known for. In the meanwhile, our synergy last year also gave us the required foothold in the dispute resolution area. These developments have now enabled us to be a one-stop solution. I would say that while the transition started as a circumstantial development in due course, it is now a planned effort from our end, given the variety we are able to offer to our clients and impetus it has provided us to expand to newer practice areas and larger jurisdictions. With the continued efforts of a superlative team and the kind trust reposed in us by our clients, we are well on the way to become a full-service law firm.
It has been almost a year since you expanded presence in Mumbai by way of inorganic growth. Do you think inorganic growth is the future for law firms to expand?
Widening our presence to Mumbai was a natural step in our evolution given the nature of our practice and the sectors we are active in. At the same time, being located in Delhi, which is considered a key litigation hub, we wanted to optimize our litigation capabilities as we have been witnessing an increasing demand. Law firms are increasingly aiming to provide services across all practice areas and across different jurisdictions. Mergers have turned out to be an effective way of creating synergies between firms of different sizes and practices, empowering them to fare better against competitor firms by virtue of consolidated practices, enhanced service offerings and augmented geographical reach. Therefore, I do think inorganic growth is the future for law firms to expand but, given the churn in the legal services market across law firms and corporates alike coupled with the rapidly changing landscape of services that law firms are now expected to offer, the most successful law firms will be the ones that are able to achieve the fine balance between organic and inorganic growth.
In these times of huge competition being witnessed by law firms, what are the day-to-day challenges that you face and how do you combat them?
The face of legal practice in India has drastically changed over the last decade or so. Unlike a few years ago, where clients heavily relied on the advocates for all information, today clients have large access to all legislative and precedent-related information. They are well-aware of their rights and liabilities under the law and hence they settle for nothing less than expert, to-the-point and up to date service. We, at Gravitas Legal, place a lot of emphasis on Knowledge Sharing and hence, client wise and matter wise, there are dedicated teams that research on latest legal and business developments, and always keep us and our clients updated. We also ensure that we better our learning curve with each transaction and matter. The Partners and team members dedicate due time, not just towards briefing, but also debriefing, to ensure that takeaways from each matter that we handle are documented and passed on to our team. This also helps us in keeping another challenge at bay, i.e., highly competitive rates owing to many players in the legal field. Knowledge Management has helped us price our services at competitive rates.
Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is another major challenge which is poised to give competition to law firms in near future. The only way to handle the same is to ensure that is value-added advice to clients, with a thorough knowledge and application of business sense. A conscious effort to dive deep into clients’ business environment and typical issues concerning the industry sector in which your client operates, will help the firms go a long way in retaining their edge in the times that will be dominated by automation and AI.
The firm has a very unique management model where there is no Managing Partner. How has this helped in keeping the management intact? Does it make decision making tougher or easier?
Since the inception of the Firm, we have believed in the concept that the Firm is the Managing Partner. Having no one person as a Managing Partner has, in fact, helped us promote a truly democratic setup in the Firm where Partners participate in decision making and decisions are “agreed upon”, rather than “imposed upon”. While all Partners share their views transparently and highlight preference on all matters, before implementation, we test our decisions against what the Firm would truly benefit from. Sanitization of decisions and contextual application of our thought process on matters surrounding the Firm has brought us a long way insofar as prioritizing the growth of the organization and its resources is concerned. To our minds, in terms of man-management (read Partner-management), setting one common and digestible objective (that is growth of Gravitas Legal), has ensured everyone stays at the same platform and is able to take unbiased and objective positions ensuring overall harmony.
What is next for Gravitas Legal, in terms of growth and expansion? Will you continue to expand in newer areas and jurisdictions?
I think I have stated in the past also, we are a team of young achievers and we are raring to go. We think outside the box, follow the innovative and unconventional path and view law as facilitating factor rather than restrictive factor. We are proud that not just the partnership at the top, but our entire team and board of advisers have made dedicated efforts to delve deeper into newer practice areas. Litigation, which was once just one of the areas practiced by the firm, has now become one of our strongest service points. Having in-depth knowledge of the industry sectors has enabled us to understand the sector-specific nuances and add gravitas to our advice, both on contentious side and transactional side. We are confident that within a couple of years from now, we will be known to be market leaders in Banking & Finance, Project Finance, Dispute Resolution and Corporate Advisory space. In terms of strategic priority we are looking to expand our pan India presence and enhance our service capabilities by way of hiring best legal talent to build a team of thought leaders. Expansion is on the horizon and, in line with our philosophy, we will endeavor to make intelligent and meritorious choices in the way and extent to which we scale up. Our top priority is to reach an optimum size to ensure that we serve the widest possible client base while retaining our fundamentals of timely and quality service.
Being a successful lawyer, with a decade and a half of experience, what is your advice to several young law aspirants? Do you think it is important for lawyers to specialize in a particular area of practice in their formative years?
My foremost advice to young law aspirants is to retain humility and respect for the profession at all times. Ultimately, ‘what you reap is what you sow’. Devote yourself unconditionally to the profession in your formative years and you will reap rewards both in terms of recognition and compensation. Like any other field, growth in law is premised on sound professional ethics and attitude and basic tenets of hard work and dedication. When you start practice, make the best use of all available resources and opportunities to learn during the initial years of your career. Gaining experience and knowledge through reading, refreshing and practicing is an absolute must and one must, at the same time, concentrate energies towards overall personality and professional development. A well-rounded lawyer is one who not only has command over the law and language but who also has sharpened softer skills to emerge as a complete package for clients. To gain this standing, I am of the view that during the initial 2-3 years after graduating from college, youngsters should focus on augmenting their overall learning, as opposed to gaining knowledge on a specific area of law. By way of all-round development of different laws and their procedural aspects, as also learning jurisdiction-specific nuances, they will equip themselves to present a more holistic and palatable scope of offerings to their clients/offices. Once this basic grounding is attained in the formative years, specialization can follow based on preferred area of practice, organizational dynamics and client requirements.
