In Conversation with Rajiv Luthra, Founder And Managing Partner Luthra And Luthra Law Offices, India

What was your childhood like? Tell us about your early years

So my father was in the Airforce, and he got transferred all over the place, so I've been to many schools across  India. That was normal for an Airforce brat. 

But we came to Delhi in 1968-69 after the Chinese operations, and I was admitted to a school called the Bal Bharthi Air force School at Lodhi Road. I was in fourth grade then, and the school was till fifth grade. So I was in the second senior most class. So they decided to make another school building. And that I went to the senior most class and that year onwards, the school decided to start a sixth grade, one grade at a time. 

So I was for four years. The house Captain. 

So what was Delhi like when you were very young. Where do you use to hang out? Were you very young to hang out with your parents? Where you used to go? 

We hung out. Oh, you better believe, we hung out like crazy, we used to live in a place called. Dhaula Kuan. And so we had the Defence Services Offices Institute, they hate calling it a club, so they called it an institute; so there was swimming, a lot of tennis, lot of squash and lots and lots of activity and lots of fun.

So, once you finished your early education, you did your college. How did law come to your mind? 

In Balbharti, there were mainly lady teachers, so there was a holiday on Karwa Chauth; so my father said, how can you be in a school where there is a holiday on Karwa Chauth. So he shifted me from there. 

When  I did my college, I was very young. I was at 16 years and three months or five months where I passed; in those days, we used to call it the entrance exam for Chartered Accountancy, So you're allowed to take the exam after the first year of college. It was a tough exam. After clearing the exam, I got into articleship and from there on, I got into audit, which I found; my apologies to all the Chartered Accountants, It is one of the most brain dead activities, because all you're doing, I discovered, seven years later, that all you're doing is checking what is wrong? You're not adding any value. 

And so you join the illustrious list, of like, Harish Salve had the same background. If I remember 

Well Harish is qualified as a Chartered Accountant. I gave up much before that because I just couldn't handle it. So I shifted my stream. I had rights of audience in the tax tribunal. I did many, many tax cases. And luckily, I got some very, very heavy-hitting clients. 

I filed the application with the Reserve Bank of India to open the liaison office for Rolls-Royce. India in 79. And thereon British Aerospace it was called British aerospace PLC and then many, many more things and had a quite a reasonable practice. Even though I saved myself from a stressful tax practice, I argued many interesting cases in the tribunal as well. Then, I discovered that all these matters will go up to the High Court or the Supreme Court, and I have no rights to audience, so at the age of 31, I did my law, and I opened my law firm in the same year. 

I will just pause here because you are talking at the age of 31, when you finish law, it requires courage; when you have a successful tax practice, it was a fairly well-known company. As far as the audit is concerned or accountancy is concerned. You leave all that and decide to plunge into a challenging situation. What was the law firm scene like?  Which were the law firms at that time when you created Luthra and Luthra?

I've never had a senior. I've never worked for anybody in my life.

So I don't know if it is good or bad, but I know that  I'm not restricted with knowledge. So, law firms that time, there were, of course, the vanilla firms, the Crawford Baileys in Bombay. JBD in Delhi. there were these two and  Ravi Nath, There was Amarchand undivided.

But no real law firm of any sort. When I opened my little law firm, on an ESD motorcycle and 1500 square foot space at Ashoka Estate in 89-.

There we are still today.

I got many awards as being a great visionary, the fact is, I didn't know anything else. And the fact is, I then went to Howard law school for seven summers and learned project finance, learned infrastructure, and learned M&A. Trade, negotiation, and all kinds of relevant things. No other college in India taught that.

And at that time any day law attendance was a b,ottle of rum. 

You were one of the early trendsetters of other corporate law practices. What were the corporate law practices as such from 1991 onwards? How fast it translated into business.

I used to play a lot of golf at that time and at a reasonable standard at the national level. So, many of the industrialists, the Thappars and the Singhanias are all golfers. So I will not name the company but a listed company at that time, the Managing Director played golf. He offered me to do his company's tax work. They used to pay 1800 rupees for their company's filing of returns and attendance for a whole year.

Then it opened up. And at one time, we were advising 52 power projects. 

So they say that actually, energy practice became later bred and butter for many law firms but one of the early pioneers was Luthra. And when much of the transition was happening post-1991, you were in the thick of things. 

So we were covering all the spectra, including training the regulators. 

There were a few young partners I had earlier. One who passed away and one who left the firm recently, a chap called Mohit Saraf. They would actually go along with me, of course, to train these regulators. And explain to them what is the electricity Act.  How does it work? What is it we should be looking at? What is non-recourse finance? etc. etc. 

I have a history to tell you that we were lawyers when I started my practising in 98. Central Electricity Regulatory Commission was just created. There was no APTEL at that time. So, I was a lawyer for the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission and Mr Parag Tripathi; Our good friend was the counsel for them.  So most of the tariff-related petitions which used to come there, all the background funding and all the background documentation were mostly done by Luthra. 

I'll tell you. There was a big challenge at that time. And it is not a slide meant on anybody. But the people manning, let's say,  the principal secretary position was a Sanskrit major; what does he know about non-recourse financing and IRR, all these complications? There would be months and months of negotiations without any understanding on their part. It was all fear of the unknown and little knowledge. So we prepared a matrix for projects that have closed in Malaysia and projects that had closed in Thailand, Srilanka or Pakistan. We essentially prepared a matrix from these projects educating the other parties about the clauses necessary in the agreement to secure financing. Now, if you look at the old power projects done with the government of India, the first three pages are our three pages. 

So that is the differentiator actually like in the Companies Act, a lot of work has been done by Amarchand Mangaldas, and in energy law, your name comes into that picture but sir, there was a massive explosion of law firms post-2000. Specialised law firms came into the picture. How did Luthra and Luthra keep reinventing itself?

My father was in the Airforce so I had no pedigree, no credibility, no judge, no Attorney General, nothing. So, I would keep thinking about where is the future of law going, it was developing very quickly. So, we were the first law firm actually do project finance directly, not just advise power projects for land acquisition but the whole nine yards.

We were also hired by an American company to do a project in China as external counsel in the 90s. We were advising them on their project along with a leading law firm. So after that, we went to Bangladesh, we went to Srilanka and even countries like Nigeria. All in the 90s. So we got amazing exposure and did a lot of interesting work which was never thought of, like satellite financing, for example. 

What do you think is happening in the legal space now? And what do you think about the trade negotiations happening between India and Britain now?  Will it result in more business opportunities for law firms between both the countries and their law firms coming here and we getting more opportunities there? 

So I don't know if your research has found that out but I was the first chairman of JETCO for legal services under GATTS. And I have had 30 meetings with the British side, a couple of meetings from the American side and a few meetings with the Australian side. I have my report; I can share it with you. It was published in 2006-2007, and nothing much has happened. My report clearly says that we must open our legal services; as a country, we have already made a commitment under GATTS. I don't see any reason why not. 

There is this fear that big law shops will come. Now let's look at the history. How many large law firms apart from the ones that amalgamate are there in the world? What is the largest law office of any law firm in Singapore? 50 people, 70 to 100 people. See anywhere. Secondly, can someone pay to the tune of 1500 pounds in India? Imagine the same partners earning 150 pounds in India as compared to a much higher pay available in Britain. Also, imagine a situation where an English lawyer is standing before an Indian Judge. Would the communication and comprehension between the two yield effective results? Who will hire them?

Which are the practice areas you are most bullish about?

So about 10 months ago, I took out the drawing board. So we have about 14 lawyers focussing on climate change and ESG. We have another 16-17 lawyers plus three partners, including yours truly, working in the domain of the Internet of things. Think about it, It is only when the horse is bolted, the law is made. Now today driverless cars are a reality. Now god forbid, if one hits you, who will you sue? Have we started thinking along these lines yet? Another one is Data privacy. With all these class action suits happening, it is about time that we ringfence our personal assets. It is very important to do your estate planning. It is very important to get family trust made. Then comes the peripheral stuff like art law, and NFT is coming. We are already well on our way. We have already got the domain knowledge and very good quality people. I am blessed that way. 

What are the things that find very good in the younger generation, and what are the things you want them to change?

I spend a lot of time with youngsters. In fact, I have a rule. I meet every intern that comes to our firm. Every generation has got its own quirks. We think these kids are crazy because they want bean bags. No, it is their own way. For this generation, everything has come very quickly, and there are many options now. At least in my time, the option was either CA, doctor or engineer or the armed forces. So now, there are so many options. So that's confusing the whole story a little bit. 

Secondly, keeping up with the changes is a challenge. In our times, the law would change every 20 years. Now it changes every year. Add to that the knowledge of the teachers is 15 to 20 years old. So things are shifting like crazy and the youngsters are bereft of knowledge when they come out of law school. We induct 70 to 80 youngsters every year and we retrain and reskill them. And I can't blame these youngsters in any way. But they have to wake up and smell the coffee. Things change every few years. 

What would be your mantra for people who don't make it to the top law firms in India? 

Unfortunately, it's become more and more it's become bureaucratic, and HR managers want to hire majorly from National Law Schools. This year, we have made it a point to tap into the talent available in other law schools in India other than the NLUs. We have hired interns and made entry-level recruitment from as many as 33 law schools in India.  We are trying to experiment and believe in gender diversity too. So we are pushing the envelope in every possible way. 

Watch the complete interview on the link below: 

Note: The automatic transcription has been lightly edited for a better reading experience. Some names and parts of the transcription may carry inadvertent errors that we are in the process of editing. Thank you for your understanding.