In Conversation With Adhip Kumar Ray, Principal Associate, S&A Law Offices

Tell us a bit about yourself. What made you choose a career in law? 

To be honest, I was a bit clueless early on about my career. I come from a Bengali joint family, and a lot of stress was placed on me to become an Engineer. My cousin who was 9 years my elder, broke out of the cycle and got enrolled in WBNUJS and was preparing to become the first lawyer in our family. She would tell me about all kinds of interesting cases and laws and helped me pick law as a career. 

WBNUJS had a massive effect on me. The brilliant professors at WBNUJS and their progressive methods of teaching had set the bedrock of my ability to think critically and helped me a lot in my career. The students there, being some of the best and brightest best minds have been inspirational and helpful in my overall development. 

If you could suggest one reform in the legal education system, what would it be? 

The present system of legal education gives a lot of importance to rote learning and large periods of the life of a law student are wasted memorising sections of legal provisions. However, in the professional practice of law, it is the application of the law to facts that is the most important skill and the present system does little to develop this skill. I believe the course structures should be reorganised to make legal education much more application based. 

Please tell us about your specialization and the array of work you handle at your firm. 

At S&A Law Offices, I work as a Principal Associate with the Litigation and ADR team. As a part of my practice I am required to frequently advice clients on ongoing and developing disputes in real time, correspondence and claims management, and ultimately dispute resolution and arbitration. For my matters, I work closely with financial consultants and experts for claims valuation and assessment and expert reports. I also specialize in risk assessment pertaining to litigation and arbitration claims and evaluation of risk against companies for pre-acquisition due diligence.

What advice would you give law students seeking the best internships in their area of interest? 

I believe that the internship experience during the first few years should be diverse, however, from the third year, the student should actively build his/her CV towards their area of interest and then look to get as much exposure as possible. I also believe that it is very important to draft the CVs properly, highlighting the work done in the interested area, as it makes a lot of difference to the recruiters. Thirdly, if an applicant gets rejected, instead of getting disheartened, he/she should just try for other places. 

How do you foresee Arbitration changing in the Post-COVID scenario?

The practice of arbitration has changed a lot because of COVID-19 and has almost completely shifted to online mode. I believe this change is semi-permanent. Doing arbitrations online saves a lot of time and money and is easier to organise from a logistical standpoint, however, the same lacks the human touch of in-person arbitrations. We can already see physical arbitration hearings happening despite the presence of COVID. Going forward we will probably see a mix of physical and online hearings.  

Many Congratulations on joining the BW Legal World Elite 30 Under 30 Club of Achievers 2021. What to your mind has helped you get to where you are and what advice would you have for others who want to set off in a similar direction? 

I would like to thank the BW Legal World team and the esteemed jury for bestowing this honour on me. Professionally, I believe being curious, admitting what I do not know and willing to learn new things have helped me a lot. Of course, S&A Law Offices has played a key role in my development by providing me the platform for development.  

My advice for others would be to identify their passion, and then leave no stone unturned while pursuing it. To have a focused and targeted approach to achieving your goals and to not get deterred by failures and to always have faith in your abilities and this will see you through whatever difficulty you face.  

As a final note, would you please recommend to our readers your favourite book that left a lasting impression on you?

Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor E. Frankl. This is one of those books that you can’t write about. You have to read it, and it will change your life.