Ten Questions

With Sajan Poovayya

What are the best and worst things about your job?

I have been lucky to have a good blend of litigation and corporate advisory practice. The best things about my job are the strong sense of independence and the enormous adrenaline rush one gets in Court, whilst thinking on one’s feet. The worst thing really is that the legal profession is a part of a greater matrix, which has some system inefficiencies. Tweaking the system a little will make the profession a lot more efficient.

Who was the first lawyer you ever worked under? What is the most important lesson that you learnt from him /her?

The first lawyer I ever worked under is my father. I worked as his court clerk at Coorg whilst I was in high school. The most important lessons I learnt are that the capacity to perform and the humility to do any kind of work, should go hand in hand. He also taught me the tenacity to fight to the finish for anything you believe in.

If a seventeen year old came to you and asked you whether he / she should consider a career in law, what advice would you give?

I would certainly urge the teenager to take to the law. It is a very fulfilling profession to be in. In fact, the future will have more in store for this profession than any other.

What was your first car? When did you buy it?

My first car was a second-hand Fiat, which I bought during the first year of my practice as a litigator.

Which is your favourite restaurant?

Montgomery Boathouse at Cincinnati, Ohio. It serves world’s greatest ribs.

What is the best book you read in the past year?

‘Ranji, the Maharajah of Connemara’ by Anne Chambers

Where did you go on your last vacation?

Cruising the Mediterranean with family.

Which historical figure would you invite for dinner? If you could only ask one question of him / her, what would you ask?

I would invite Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. One question I certainly would ask is, what he thought was wrong in the Gandhian ideology of non-violence.

What is the most significant change that you would make to the law school curriculum?

I would make a significant change to the system of evaluation. The focus of the evaluation system should shift towards testing the ability to interpret and apply the law rather than the ability to memorize and reproduce it.

What is the most significant change that you would like to see in the legal industry in the next five years?

I would like to see the emergency of large multi-disciplinary law firms which are ‘full service’ in the true sense of the term. Also, I would certainly like to see greater use of technology to enhance efficiencies in docket management by Courts.

(The Managing Partner at Poovayya & Co. -a full service law firm headquartered at Poovayya House on Haudin Road in Bangalore, with two more offices in New Delhi and Chennai - Sajan Poovayya has a practice that spans domestic and international arbitration; real estate and infrastructure; corporate litigation and technology and outsourcing. Legal 500 quotes clients who call him “a good strategist” and lists the firm in Band 1 for Intellectual Property and Band 2 for Dispute Respolution in Bengaluru. The firm also acts as domain partner for leading legal process outsourcing company Clutch Group. Sajan Poovayya is also Chairman, Karnataka State Council, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry).

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