In Conversation with Amar Kumar Sundram – India Head - Legal, Governance & Regulatory Affairs, NatWest Group

Mr Sundaram, please take us through the formative years of your exceptional journey. What motivated you to study law? How was your first year after college like? 

My career in law was by default. Like most of the students in late ’80s and early ’90s, the career aspiration was to crack UPSC and with that in mind, History, being a scoring paper in UPSC, was the obvious choice in BA (Hons) while taking admission in Kirori Mal College, Delhi University (DU). The University life during my graduation days was very absorbing as the campus life in Delhi University was full of diversified activities throughout the year. However, living outside the college hostel had the biggest disadvantage of getting quality food and hence by the time graduation was completed, the immediate objective was to get a hostel seat. Law became the natural choice as most of the PG hostels in DU had some reserved seats for law students. Additionally, law provided a backup career option, if UPSC failed.  

I was the topper in the first semester of the LLB examination (Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi) and it finally got me a hostel seat in Men's PG in the campus. The feeling was as if I have cracked UPSC and all my dreams have come true. The satisfaction of a stable life in terms of food, no frequent change of rented accommodation, rooms being cleaned by staff etc was amazing. The journey in law gradually started taking shape, as Mandal Commission leading to restriction in the number of seats, dampened the mood and opportunity in UPSC. 

The three years of LLB was full of campus activities – library, classes, interaction with professors, choosing the right books especially for constitutional law - H.M. Seervai; Prof MP Singh; - participating in college elections and festivals; organizing events for the college, – the urge to regularly visit home town was decreasing day by day.  

Then came the final year of the LLB and there was a campus interview. Borrowed a blazer from a hostel mate and rushed for the interview. Out of some 100 students, 5 were selected for the final interaction with the then Executive Director in the corporate office of DCM Shriram Limited (DSCL) at Connaught Place in New Delhi. The final selection was two – one female colleague and me – for posting at the manufacturing plant of DSCL in Kota (Rajasthan). With the appointment letter in my hand, it appeared as if I had won the world but was equally confused on the next plan of action.  

Nobody in my family then had the experience of corporate life. Father was a bureaucrat who had participated in the Indian National Movement as a Freedom Fighter (had the honour of interacting with Mahatma Gandhi and Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri); had represented India in the world Archery competition in 1947 (Paris) and was twice decorated by two Presidents of India, was not happy and wanted me to take up some banking exams or pursue state public service commission exams. Nevertheless, I continued my DSCL career amidst lot of confusion and uncertainty about my future plans.  

The initial years of DSCL were very absorbing with lots of learning at the plant site, making good friends, understanding life little better, exposure to various aspects of complex legal issues and finally the major turning point in my career came. My then boss asked me to go to Delhi and brief Mr Shantibhushan on a complex double taxation case which was coming up for hearing in the Supreme Court. Mr Soli J Sorabjee was arguing for the state of Rajasthan from the opposite side. I had the pleasure of hearing two legal stalwarts and since I had thoroughly gone through the case file, every bit of the argument was getting into my head. We won the case and I won over my confused state of mind. It was clear that I am going to pursue law as my career.  

The journey continues from manufacturing to telecom to financial institution to real estate to Big 4’s to captive – varied sectoral experience. The zeal to learn and add value to organizational growth is ever-growing. 

Do you have any role models in the legal fraternity or outside of it? If so, what impact they have made in your career and how? 

I had the good fortune of briefing and interacting with Fali S Nariman (“Fali” as he is fondly referred to) and I must admit that I was highly impressed and mesmerized by his articulation and court crafts. Mr Nariman’s humour and carrying the bench with his arguments with voice modulation and simple examples were the keys to clinch the case. A great constitutional jurist – he remains the role model for many including me.  

Fali in an interview said while responding to the question “what advice would you give to today’s students and budding lawyers?” -  

“For aspiring lawyers and law students I would like to say in your career, never try to show off. There is a tremendous amount of knowledge to be learnt, there is a tremendous amount of experience to be had in the field of law and no one can say “I’m on top and I know everything”. No, you don’t. The moment you say, you know everything, I’m afraid that’s the beginning of your downfall. It’s a never-ending process of learning and humility is essential because you can never learn the law. (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fali_Sam_Nariman)” 

Fali also said – Law is a matter of the heart, as well as the head. You have to have compassion; it is one of the greatest qualities. He quoted Lord Denning and Justice Krishna Iyer who have both said that compassion is extraordinarily important in the law, amongst lawyers and particularly amongst Judges. One must be able to assess whether a person has something genuine to say in a case”. 

(https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fali_Sam_Nariman)” 

“Before Memory Fades: An Autobiography” by Fali S Nariman, is a must-read for all legal professionals.  

Please give our readers a sneak peek into your job profile.  

My role is broadly to examine current and emerging risks, their potential impact and possible mitigation strategies. I remain a respected partner to the business leaders and a wise guardian of the Organizations’ integrity and reputation.  

Situation emerging out of Covid 19 was unprecedented. What are the changes you witnessed amongst the legal professionals who had to deal with Covid 19 scenario? What are some of the operational issues in-house legal departments are facing today because of the pandemic?  

Covid 19 was indeed unprecedented and legal profession like any other business/function was not prepared for it.  In any change curve, there are 4 key stages – Denial, Anger, Exploration and Acceptance. The entire journey of the pandemic is passing through these stages whereby legal professionals initially refused to accept the restrictions imposed due to lock-down which subsequently gave way to anger as the situation did not improve. Thereafter, legal professionals started exploring alternative ways of dealing with the situation and finally they accepted that Covid 19 was indeed real and “virtual” is not only a new normal but also a way of survival and growth.  

Technology came to our rescue. At one point in time before March 2020 when we all had started cursing the increasing addiction with mobile phones, the change came when mobile phones became our key-dependent. The change in the view from “detoxification of technology” to adopting technology with natural love, has been a key take away during the current Covid 19 journey. Virtual court hearings, virtual board meetings, virtual clients meeting, virtual business interactions, virtual team meetings – the world converged to the internet. Suddenly the realization came that the world is much smaller than we had thought and people can stay connected without the compulsion of a physical meet.  

While the situation was compelling due to forced lockdown, the biggest challenge we all faced was taking care of each other on the mental well-being front. New ideas were developed and slowly work gave way to celebrations / happy hours on zoom to keep each other mentally fit and productively engaged. 

As John F Kennedy said – Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word “CRISIS”. One brush stroke stands for “Danger”, another one stands for “Opportunity”. In a crisis, while we should be aware of the danger, but we must recognize the opportunity. 

As legal professionals, by the time the vaccine comes and we are all in the safe zone, there will be lots of success story arising out of Covid 19, to tell our future generation. As I say to everybody, write down one of your success story – what you did differently, during a pandemic, which will be great learning for the future generations – who, hopefully, will not get to experience the current pandemic. 

What do in-house legal departments of the future look like?  

Future generation of lawyers, including in-house legal professionals, is going to be O shaped. They will have to combine their legal knowledge with technological competency blended with a human touch. They will have to come out of their comfort zone, accept challenges, keep their learning curve alive/active, have a creative and commercial mindset and keep looking for new opportunities. Along with these, they will have to focus on their mental strength and develop caring attitudes for their colleagues and clients. The future of in-house lawyers is in collaboration and teaming rather than acting in isolation. 

What are the governance and compliance risks posed by increasing use of technology? 

Increasing use of technology poses its own challenges. Increase in the number of financial crimes, cyber frauds, phishing, hacking etc are testimony to this. With data being at the centre of any business, the need to ring-fence the potential leakage of critical information / critical data is at the root of survival and growth. While cloud computing makes our life much easier as it gives a wider reach to access, one should not forget that it also poses a risk in terms of security of one’s sensitive data and organization’s proprietary information. Working from Home (WFH) is definitely a new norm and even when Covid 19 situation improves, many business houses will redefine the working module whereby WFH will be at the focal point, the challenges posed by WFH should equally be assessed and risk mitigation plans be drawn.  

We all look forward to the upcoming legislation around Personal Data Protection Bill which look very promising in terms of providing a framework around data protection in India.  

How do you see the legal compliance framework changing with the emergence of AI? 

Artificial Intelligence provides an opportunity, through the processing of large data, for a huge shift in how organizations manage risks, moving from people to machine power to process data quickly to identify patterns, trends, gaps and potential changes. AI offers in-house legal counsel an excellent strategic opportunity to align themselves with the business they support.  

Legal compliance framework revolves around managing legislative changes, adapting to compliance mechanism to respond to new challenges created by new events and managing relationship with regulators. Technology and AI plays a significant role in these. Covid 19 taught us that managing contractual landscape especially the crisis clauses (like Force Majeure) are very important and in this applying AI to review and extract data, deploying workflow and logic systems to automate the process of analyzing that data, developing insights and producing desired output are the key interface between in-house legal professionals and their role with the support of AI. With the help of AI/technology the entire contract lifecycle in terms of document automation, negotiation, approvals, E-Signing, smart contracts, regulatory reporting, compliance training, misconduct/fraud prediction etc can be proactively managed for a better legal compliance framework. 

What is your take on the notion of Work-Life Balance? What keeps you busy other than work? 

Legal professionals, traditionally, are very averse to change and resist taking initiatives and a leadership position in driving change in any organization. Pandemic taught all of us that there is a need to go beyond the traditional way of working and mental resilience is as important as physical fitness. Empathy, being human and pursuing one’s passion in addition to professional work are an important component of one’s professional career. Work-Life Balance is, thus, most important for a long term sustainable professional career. 

In addition to my work, I love mentoring young lawyers, law students, being closer to nature and of late have started learning the art of cooking (with the help of YouTube of course) and all of these keeps me busy while not working.   

Do you still find time to pursue your hobbies? Would you please recommend any movies or books that have had a profound impression on you? 

I do find time to pursue my hobbies. I respond to opportunities to interact with young lawyers/law students to guide them and nurture them. I also find time to read and write articles. 

Recently I watched the web series “The Crown” on Netflix and liked it. It follows the political rivalries and romance of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign and the events that shaped the second half of the 20th century.  

The book titled – “Courtroom Genius” which captures the journey of Mr Nani Palkhivala as a lawyer and discusses the important cases in which he appeared and that changed the destiny of the country. The book provides a rare insight into his working methods and style of advocacy. I recommend this book to every legal professional to read and possess in his / her library.  

What to your mind has helped you get to where you are and what advice would you have for others who want to achieve success in the legal profession?  

There is no substitute for hard work. Adopt to change, evolve and remain closer to the business you serve. The way of working is going to change every 3-5 years and one should be alert and remain flexible. The passion to read and learn, at every stage, should be an integral part of one’s career path. In addition to your core subject expertise, pick up 1-2 additional courses which is aligned to the changing times.  

Note:- The views expressed here are entirely personal. 

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