In Conversation With Swathi Kamath, Head - Legal, DuPont

Ms Kamath, would you please take us down memory lane and tell our readers, what motivated you to pursue law as a career?

To be honest, I ended up doing law, by a process of elimination rather than actively choosing the legal field. I definitely wasn’t interested in Arts. The thought of dissecting a frog and then a cadaver horrified me, so Medicine was out of the question. Engineering didn’t interest me either. So I took up Commerce after my 10th grade. Becoming a Chartered Accountant or pursuing MBA would have been a natural choice for a Commerce student, but Math wasn’t my strong suit. So I pursued the Company Secretary course alongside B.Com and then LL.B logically followed. Also, I thought that these courses suited my personality given my curious and analytical mindset and a strong sense of justice. 

Did you have mentors in the profession? Tell us about the formative years of your legal career. 

My legal career has been as unconventional as it could possibly be. As I was pursuing CS and law together, I couldn’t intern with law firms, which usually helps many law students discover their area of specialization and also get hired. After completing my CS from ICSI and LL.B from ILS Law College in Pune, I was looking out for job opportunities. I’ve had some fantastic professors in ILS who stoked my interest in law. So I was open to both CS and legal roles. Back in 2010, Pune didn’t have many law firms and without any legal internships under my belt, I presumed that no law firm was going to hire me. I was fortunate to get my first opportunity with the business advisory/consulting division of a large Indian CA firm. Here I got exposed to complex legal transactions like joint ventures, acquisitions, technology collaborations etc. I got to work with some brilliant minds and working with experienced Chartered Accountants in the team gave me a good insight into the business and commercial aspects of a transaction. This experience has moulded me to become the commercial/business lawyer that I am today and to look at a transaction with a 360-degree view instead of a myopic legal view. The next steep learning curve was during my stint in Smith & Nephew, a global medical device company. Being in a regulated industry, it was a rich and broad learning experience for me as sole counsel. My manager (who is now the global GC of Smith & Nephew) was my first legal mentor and she coached me to handle difficult situations, make balanced judgments based on facts, taught me resilience, helped me discover my potential and all this basically made me a better and more confident professional. With every new role, from a start-up to a 200-year old corporation, I’ve handled different challenges and new assignments. This breadth and depth of experience has given me new wisdom. In my current role in Dupont, which is a new industry for me, I continue to learn every day and am blessed to be part of an amazing global legal team.

As an in-house lawyer, you must be dealing with documentation and contracts on a daily basis. What would be your suggestions to simplify contracts that nowadays run into hundreds of pages?

I am an advocate of simplicity. I personally do not use fancy legalese unless absolutely required. I believe that the simpler the language, the more effective it makes the document - even our business colleagues should be able to read and interpret the terms & conditions that govern their business and consequently avoid potential disputes. I feel a sense of achievement when I replace an excruciatingly complicated document with one that even a non-lawyer can comprehend. In today’s context, we general counsels are much more than just litigators and contract draftsmen - we are business strategists, trusted advisors and influencers. To be able to influence, we need to be excellent communicators (verbal or written), and the essence of good communication is to be easily understood.

As an important cog in the wheel, how would you rate India's overall corporate governance framework? Any glaring grey areas that require urgent attention? 

As a lawyer I understand how difficult it is to make a law and maintain a fine balance between over regulation and under regulation. Our laws have evolved over the years in line with changing dynamics and we have seen the recent amendments in SEBI’s LODR due to the sudden increase in Initial Public Offerings in the last 2 years. I also hope to see regulators like MCA, Tax Authorities, SEBI, RBI work together more cohesively to ensure stronger enforcement of corporate governance laws. Also faster delivery of justice (meaning more judges and better judicial infrastructure) would make implementation of our corporate governance framework more effective. I think we need better implementation at the moment rather than better/more laws.

Business models are evolving quickly and transactional complexities are increasing. What would be your playbook for developing a robust compliance framework that not only mitigates the legal risks but also sets a benchmark in the industry?

My playbook would have to be dynamic and updated from time to time. It would be significantly different for a start up as compared to a mature corporation due to varying risk appetites. Broadly, a General Counsel’s playbook should have the following steps to create a compliance framework:

1. Identify all the applicable laws and regulations
2. Assess the current state and identify gaps
3. Develop easy-to-use systems and processes

What takes this compliance framework from good to great would be the tone at the top and a strong corporate culture that has zero tolerance for ethics and compliance violations.

Tell us about your life outside the law. Do you still get time to pursue your hobbies? Any book that you would like to recommend to the young lawyers reading this interview?

Outside of work, what invigorates me is spending time with my family, travelling and reading. As I continue to find the middle ground between “things and the soul”, my reading interests are varied. I would suggest reading The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson, Life’s Amazing Secrets by Gaur Gopal Das and The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.

As a woman lawyer who has steadily climbed the ladder, how easy or difficult was it for you to keep the work-life balance intact? Are corporates doing enough at a policy level to facilitate work-life integration for woman employees?

Work-life balance does not exist. We can aim for work-life integration/harmonization. The famous African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child” rings truer today than ever before. With more women entering the workforce, having a solid support system back home is very crucial. I’m one of the fortunate few to have that backing from my family. The pandemic has taught the corporates that a hybrid working model is possible. However, now that the pandemic is over, some corporates have gone fully remote, whereas some want to restore pre-pandemic normalcy. In either case, the struggle for working women continues, due to which many women are forced to leave their jobs to take care of children etc. This has resulted in many women opting not to have kids, which will have long term repercussions on the economy. Corporates need to take cognizance of this fact and have women-friendly policies, so that there is no shortage of work force in the future.

What has been your mantra for success and what advice would you give to young lawyers looking to build a career as an In house lawyer?

First, I have always lived by the belief that there is no substitute to hard work, and the harder you work, the luckier you get. Stay focussed.

Second, your reputation is above everything else, so set the gold standard in integrity. 

Third, what distinguishes one from others is one who doesn’t make excuses and finds a way out. Everybody loves a solution-oriented lawyer. 

And last but not the least, stay humble and continue learning.