In Conversation with Nandini Khaitan, Partner, Khaitan & Co

BW Legal World initiated a Dialogue of Change in view of the International Women’s Day 2021, to bring real and enduring change one conversation at a time. BW Legal World in association with BW Businessworld hosted 50 women in law on March 06, 2021, at its virtual conference titled Gearing up for India@75: What Women Want—A BW Legal World Dialogue with Women Leaders in Law.

Here’s an edifying dialogue between the BW Legal World Managing Editor, Ashima Ohri and Nandani Khaitan, Partner, Khaitan & Co. 

ASHIMA OHRI: Would you say it is equally difficult for men and women in demanding professions like ours to strike a work-life balance or would you say that women continue to get the shorter end of the stick, given our gendered responsibilities? 

NANDINI KHAITAN: So, the short answer to that is still we keep asking this question, I think we are on the short end. The day we don't have to ask this question anymore is the day we are not at the shorter end of the stick for sure. There is no question about it. 

ASHIMA OHRI: Nandini, how has been your experience through your journey in law, and what would be the instances that you can share with us in terms of how you have fought through misogyny in the system? 

NANDINI KHAITAN: So, my journey has been, I mean everybody's journey is unique. Somebody is a first-generation lawyer and has access barriers, some people are already married and they have issues. So, everybody has a very unique and different journey. Mine was unique in the sense that my family were in the profession of law for a good 90 years before I decided I wanted to go down the route and my family is really great. I mean they're all pro-education, very pro-women education. And, I grew up in a house which kind of had three men wearing a black jacket and leaving the house in the morning so I kind of just grew up thinking that's what I want to do. But you know it still took everybody by surprise. No one said no, but they were taken aback that you'll do a five- year course. What about marriage? I graduated in 2004 I started in 1999. So, in 1999 the idea of doing a five- year law course for a woman, it wasn't a thing. My family had also done it and we were lawyers. So, to that extent it was different and then I said I wanted to join office and that was again another surprising sort of decision for my family. I think I didn't have as much struggle in that sense, except for the fact that the surprise that I sprung on the family. But, when we opened the Bombay office, I shifted from Calcutta as a part of the founding team. I was an intern back then but I was part of the team that went to Bombay. Nobody had really interacted with Khaitan & Co. as much as you know some of the council's hadn't even heard of the firm. So, we literally sort of worked ground up to build the relations, to build our presence in court and all of that. And I think that's where you know all the sort of journey and the learning and all came in. Those 10 years in Bombay were really crucial to my journey, both as a lawyer, as a junior and as to how to navigate a situation as a woman in a man's world started. 

ASHIMA OHRI: Thank you Nandini for sharing your journey with us. In fact, interestingly, I've read somewhere that you had to choose to dress differently at a point during your court visits. Now that sadly happens to most of us. What would be your take on this? Why in this current day and age, even in the courts, do women have to worry about what we wear, how we dress over what we have to say.

NANDINI KHAITAN: So, I think we should stop thinking so much about it, why is it so wrong? Why is it such a big problem? I think we have to accept that there is a problem and then do our best to work around it. I think you have to be and I've said this in a lot of forums and possibly sounding repetitive now. But I say that you have to be comfortable. You need to be efficient and you need to be comfortable, whatever that may be in. So, for example, in the skirt incident that you mentioned, I used to go wearing a skirt in the Bombay High Court and that's like part of the court uniform there actually. Very often I had to sit in City Civil Court, which is also the criminal court for the city and I would be sitting on the same benches as a lot of the undertrials and handcuffs and I would have people staring. Now, if that doesn't bother you, perfectly okay. It bothered me, so I started wearing maybe salwar kameez or pants. It kind of interfered with my process of thinking about that rather than my case and that's not something I want to be doing. Now, I can think that that shouldn't happen but that's not going to really help me right so you work around situations everybody has to adapt to problems. Gender issues become common and that's why we discuss it. But everybody has to go through issues and you have to learn to work around them. Of course, you stand up very strongly for what you think. For example, when I came back to Calcutta and I continued to wear skirts in Calcutta because I was simply going only to High Court, some seniors remarked that the skirt is so short and that's obviously not the case. But, what I realized was that they hadn't seen women in skirts and it was kind of very jarring for them and it took away from the seriousness of my work. So, I was like it doesn't bother me enough to just have to wear a Kurta and I decided to do that because to me it was a distraction that people were discussing that rather than work. So, for my efficiency and comfort perspective I changed but, there could be somebody who's equally comfortable not being bothered by it and I would say go for it. So, different strokes for different folks but, I think the conversation will change. When you see enough people wearing skirts, when enough of a similar situation happening, it's not a sort of like a sore thumb. 

ASHIMA OHRI: Very well pointed out. One question that also comes to mind when you're discussing all this is, how should companies or in general, organizations, try to retain women in the workforce. It is no news to anybody, women have different priorities at different stages in life, maybe a little more differently than others. Some women may choose to take a break for their marriage or the childcare or so on and so forth. Now, how can companies become more sensitive towards this? How can organizations do better and be more inclusive?

NANDINI KHAITAN: So yeah, I think my answer to this is at two levels. Let's face facts that companies, corporations, corporate India or any business place is always going to look at profitability, at the best commercial decisions for themselves, no matter what we say right. So, at a sort of a level from the cooperation sides perspective, I think women just need to work a little harder maybe because of the circumstances they are in to show that they are so damn good that the company wants to kind of will fight to retain them. I have seen such brilliant women come through the doors in the last few years. I had an intern who was absolutely fantastic. She was the topper of her law school and her thought processes were like miles, like years ahead of somebody as a fresher. And after two years in Calcutta litigation, she said that I can't do this anymore because I'm not cut out for litigation. I can’t do late-night conferences. In Calcutta, we have it very late at night. So, she wanted to do the whole policy, sort of space and I really wanted her to stay. So, I think the fact that she was so good made me want to fight for her. So, I think that if somebody is that good with their work, the companies will automatically be incentivized to do that. That's something on us women, to start with. I mean we also have to do our bit too because we know that we're already at a disadvantage. So, we kind of have to work that little harder to make sure that they want to keep us no matter what. I mean, we can say that should not be the case but again let's face facts. As far as the company's perspective is concerned, which is the real struggle or your story really comes in. I think India has done well with the Maternity Act. It's one of the most progressive acts in the world. 26 weeks of paid leave, hardly any other country in the world has that kind of thing. In my article on women I've given the statistics, on Singapore, US and some European countries, none compared to how fabulous India has been in this particular respect. So, I think it's already a step in the right direction. But what firms can or companies can do is, give more internships to women consciously. I'm not saying it as a tokenism because that doesn't help. If you're going to reserve one spot for a woman associate or you can reserve one spot for an intern, you are just going to be doing that and unless that person is brilliant you're not going to do anything further than that. I'm saying if you find four resumes that are all equally brilliant, then maybe try and do pick more of the women from that to give them a chance. I wouldn't say that hire women for the sake of tokenism or to show a diversity sort of thing because that doesn't help in the end. So yes, if you have four equally good resumes, give chance to the women. So, I know of a company that wanted the women to understand numbers, as well as the men, did because somehow men always took commerce and the women didn't as many. So, that company actually put out a training program for the women in their company to understand how to read a balance sheet and that's really true empowerment where you work ground up, I think. So, you need to create these sort of opportunities for women to upskill themselves to really kind of have a level playing field. 

ASHIMA OHRI: Very well said, Nandini. I think taking initiatives to ensure there is parity at workplaces is something everyone needs to emulate.

NANDINI KHAITAN: Another example that quickly comes to mind is that in my firm we have a partner, who was a young mom and she has taken a maternity leave and she was very fearful for her partnership. She reached the partner track but she had to take a sabbatical, the maternity. She wasn't sure that the firm would take her seriously because she was but she didn't know the firm would realize that but our firm did that and they gave her the partnership immediately. She was so happy with that. And, in my mind, she shouldn't even had to worry. But then, but that's something that women have to worry about. So, until they have that worry I think we're not doing enough. 

ASHIMA OHRI: That's true. Sometimes the fear of losing out takes a hold of us: I might lose out on my partner track or my road to leadership roles, and so on and so forth. These fears continue to plague many of us, but it's great to have people like you and others who are doing their bit in their organizations to alleviate these fears in women. Before we let you leave, a final piece of advice to lawyers and other women? 

NANDINI KHAITAN: So, I always like to quote my very good friend Madhavi Divan on this that, tenacity is really the best friend for a woman in this profession. You just have to keep going at it. We have to accept that our tracks might be a little slower because of various issues, we do have the added responsibilities of home and family. So, we may have a little bumpier ride, perhaps, especially if you're in litigation because then it's bound with court proceedings and court deadlines. But tenacity and keeping at it is I think the best advice I can repeat if I may say that if you just keep at it, you will get that. It's definitely heartbreaking but sometimes it's not possible to keep everything going at one time and it's overwhelming. But if in some capacity you keep it going and you keep working at it, it gets better and it will happen. I think with the number of women studying law now or getting educated, the infrastructure, space will change because you have to do it to accommodate that many numbers of women who are there or coming in. 

ASHIMA OHRI: Thank you so much Nandini for your encouraging thoughts and for sharing your day with us. Thank you so much for being a part of this conference, a very happy Women's Day to you. 

NANDINI KHAITAN: Thank you! Have a great day!

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