BW Legal World Honors 100 Influential Women Driving Change in Indian Legal Ecosystem

Women are breaking the glass ceiling when it comes to creating and managing successful careers in the legal profession. The archaic notion of giving up careers post-marriage and the skepticism around women in leadership roles are now relics of the past. 

As Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, "Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time." 

On this women’s day let’s #EmbraceEquity with women in law. The International Women's Day website says, "Equity isn't just a nice-to-have, it's a must-have. 

It was in 1989 that a woman, Justice Fathima Beevi was first appointed as a judge in the Supreme Court of India. Since then not much has changed at the Top Court. Even today only 4 out of the total 33 sitting judges are women. There are only 30 per cent women judges in the lower courts and 11.5 per cent in high courts. 

Are we keeping pace with the times? While the legal profession has evolved as a level-playing field for men and women with no active discrimination, the statistics leave much to be desired of the fraternity. 

According to surveys conducted by leading legal publications, for every 100 senior lawyers at law firms, only 15 are women. And on average for every 100 Partners at the top thirty Indian law firms, only 30 are women, as of 2019. 

BW Legal World’s Most Influential Women 2023 takes a look at these leaders who have not only positively impacted the profession but also communities at large, inspiring the leaders of tomorrow. 

In order to arrive at this year’s influential names, BW Legal World and BW Businessworld appointed an eminent advisory board, whose experience and expertise helped us in our final list. The advisory for this year comprised the editorial boards of BW Businessworld, BW Legal World from names such as

Mohit Saraf , Founder & Managing Partner,Saraf & Partners

Dr.G.V. RAO, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India

Arvind Nayar, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India

Shashank Bajpai, Advocate, Supreme Court of India

Hemant Kumar, Group General Counsel, Larsen & Toubro

Prof. Dr. Ranbir Singh, Governor of the Board International Association of Law Schools

Dr Annurag Batra, Chairman & Editor-in-Chief, BW Legal World 

Gareema Ahuja,  Business Head, BW Legal World 

The list of 100 leaders is devided into 6 categories namely, 

Judges: Titans of the Bench

Lawyers: Titans of the Bar

Legacy Builders of Law

General Counsel 

Academicians

Emerging Women Leaders 

*The names are in alphabetical order*

Without further ado, here is the list of 100 Women leaders who are driving change & progress in the Indian legal ecosystem

Hall Of Fame: Honouring the Most Influential Women in Law

Judges: Titans of the Bench

Amrita Sinha, Judge, Calcutta High Court

Anu Sivaraman, Judge, Kerela High Court

Anuja Prabhudesai, judge, Bombay High Court

Bela Trivedi, Judge, Supreme Court of India

Bharati H. Dangre, Judge, Bombay High Court

B.V. Nagarathna, Judge, Supreme Court of India

Gita Mittal, Former Judge, J&K High Court

Hima Kohli, Judge, Supreme Court of India

Indu Malhotra, Former Judge and Senior Counsel, Supreme Court of India

Jyotsna Rewal Dua, Judge, Himachal Pradesh High Court

Mauna M. Bhatt, Judge, Gujarat High Court

Mukta Gupta, Judge, Delhi High Court

Prathiba M. Singh, Judge, Delhi High Court

P.T Asha, Judge, Tamil Nadu High court

R.Hemlatha, Judge , Tamil Nadu High Court

Sabina, Judge, Himachal Pradesh

Sangeeta Chandra, Judge, Allahabad High Court

Savitri Ratho, Judge, Orissa High Court

Sophy Thomas, Judge, Kerela High Court 

Suvra Ghosh, Judge, Calcutta High Court

Vaibhavi D. Nanavati, Judge, Gujarat High Court

Veena Birbal, Former Judge, Delhi High Court

Lawyers: Titans of the Bar

Aishwarya Bhati, Additional Solicitor General of India

Anitha Shenoy, Senior Advocate

Aparajita Singh, Senior Advocate

Arundhati Katju, Advocate, Supreme Court of India

Flavia Agnes, Legal Scholar and Women Rights Activist

Geeta Luthra, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India

Indira Jaising, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India

Madhavi Goradia Divan, Senior Advocate

Meenakshi Arora, Senior Advocate

Meenakshi Lekhi, Member of Parliament

Menaka Guruswamy, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India

Neelima Tripathi, Senior Advocate

Pinky Anand, Senior Advocate,

Priya Hingorani, Senior Advocate

Rachana Srivastava, Senior Advocate

Rebecca John, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India

Shobha Dixit, Senior Advocate

Shreya Singhal, Advocate, Supreme Court of India

Vrinda Grover, Advocate, Supreme Court of India

Legacy Builders of Law

Anuradha Dutt, Founder, DMD Advocates

Gitanjali Saraf, Senior Partner, Saraf and Partners

Nina Gupta, Managing Partner, Bhasin & Co

Nisha Kaur Uberoi, Partner, Trilegal 

Pallavi Shroff, Managing Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mamgaldas & Co.

Vandana Shroff, Partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas 

Zia Mody, Founding Partner, AZB & Partners

General Counsel 

Archana Sasan, Vice President Legal Counsel, Dell

Anjali Balagopal, General Counsel, Tata Technologies

Anjana Bali, EVP Legal, DLF Home Developers Ltd

Anooshree Chakraborty Sinha, Executive Director, Head Legal & Compliance, EverSource Capital

Bijoya Roy,  General Counsel, South Asia, Pernod Ricard

Damini Bhalla, General Counsel, Zomato

Damini Marwah, Head (Legal) & Secretarial, HDFC Bank

Debolina Partap, General Counsel, Wockhardt

Deepika Chaudhry, Senior Executive Legal Compliance & Govt. Affairs | Executive Director- APAC, Xerox, India

Inderpreet Sawhney, Group General Counsel, Infosys

Ipsita Dutta, Executive Director, Morgan Stanley

Jahnavi Ravindranath, Head of Legal, AB InBev India

Kalpana Agarwal, Joint President & Co-head Legal, Kotak Mahindra Bank

Kanika Sachdeva, Regional Legal Counsel, Stryker

Lopamudra Rao, General Counsel, Meesho

Lubinisha Saha, Head of Legal and compliance for India and South Asia, Airbus India

Manjaree Chowdhary, Senior Executive Director & General Counsel, Maruti Suzuki

Meena Lall, Chief Legal Officer, Tata Steel

Meera Singh, General Counsel, KPMG, India

Monika Dhingra, General Counsel, Fortum India

Padmaja Chakravarty, General Counsel - Citi India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh

Parveen Mahtani, Chief Legal Officer, Mahindra Lifespace Developers

Pooja Bedi, Head of Legal and Compliance, Indian Sub Continent, Philips

Poornima Sampath, SVP & Chief Legal Officer, Tata Digital

Pratibha Jain, Head of Strategy & Group General Counsel, Everstone

Preet Sethi, Deputy General Counsel, Vedanta Group

Preeti Balwani, General Counsel, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages

Priya Mehra, General Counsel - Akasa Air

Priyanka Walesha, Head Legal- Yum! Digital 

Sheetal Kapur, Head of Payments and Privacy Legal, Amazon

Shraddha Malhotra, Senior Legal Counsel, Asia Pacific, Avery Dennison

Sree Patel, Executive Director, Mondelēz International (India)

Sonal Basu, General Counsel and Vice President, Mindtree

Shyamala Venkatachalam, Chief Legal Officer,  Zee Entertainment Enterprises

Sanjit Kaur Batra, Group Vice President - Legal and Legal Head - Cummins

Shelly Kohli, Chief Legal & Compliance Officer, United Breweries

Saguna Vaid, General Counsel - Indigo 

Smita Priyadarshini, Senior Director and Executive Legal Counsel, Boston Consulting Group

Tejal Patil, General Counsel, Wipro

Urvashi Sahay, General Counsel & SVP-Legal — OCL, Paytm

Vidyut Gulati, General Counsel, Bharti Airtel Ltd

Academicians  

Nishtha Jaswal, Vice Chancellor, Himachal Pradesh National Law University

Dr. Ritu Gupta , Professor of Law, NLU Delhi

Shashikala Gurpur, Director, SLS, Pune

Usha Tandon, Dean, Faculty of Law, Delhi University

Ved Kumari, Vice Chancellor, National Law University, Orissa

Emerging Women Leaders 

Charanya Lakshmikumaran, Partner, Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan 

Mishi Chowdhary, SVP and General Counsel, Virtru

Natasha Shroff, Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas

Pallavi Pratap, Managing Partner, Pratap and Co

Paridhi Adani, Partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas

Shriya Maini, AOR, Supreme Court of India

Shweta Shroff Chopra, Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas