"There are no shortcuts to success and you got to be passionate about the things you do, love your profession."Amber Gupta, Legal Head & Company Secretary, Aditya Birla Sun Life

Mr Gupta, would you please tell our readers what motivated you to pursue law and what were the formative years of your professional career like. What to your mind has been the biggest highlight of your legal career? 

A degree in law came as a natural choice for me as I was also perusing Company Secretaryship. My interest in corporate laws and securities laws deepened while I completed the CS course and therefore I took up a degree in law as a natural choice to sharpen my skills and understanding of legal jurisprudence. Company Secretary with a Law qualification is an amazing combination which gets you best of both. Well, honestly, I wanted to be a Corporate Lawyer and aspired to practice Corporate and Securities Law. However, as it was destined, I landed in-house and now it is being 20 years as an In-house Corporate Counsel and a Corporate Secretary, having worked on multiple areas and issues ranging from Due-diligence, M&A, Dispute Resolution and Litigation Management, Contracts and Agreements, Corporate Compliances encompassing  SEBI, RBI, IRDAI, Company Law, Securities Laws, Capital Markets, Insurance Laws, Banking and NBFC Laws, Informational Technology, IPR, Labour Laws and  Corporate Governance. 

Hands-on operating experience of multiple lines of business, working on different issues, dealing with multiple regulations, problem-solving and providing solutions within the contours of law, implementing best practices and developing best inhouse legal team are key highlights of my career so far.  

You have around 2 decades of professional experience. It is said that success is easy to achieve but difficult to sustain. What has helped you achieve and sustain success over a long period of time? Did studying in a non-NLU setup (Lucknow University) ever prove to be a hurdle? 

Well, there are no shortcuts to success and you got to be passionate about the things you do whether personal or professional.  You also should get your basics right and the application of knowledge in the real world.  You got to think big and think passionately with a solution-orientated mindset. Strive to make things better every day. I also feel fortunate to be part of a dynamic team in my existing role. It has provided ample opportunities and scale to operate. I got a chance to work with some outstanding leaders across different lines of businesses and access to some best in class practices and values to vouch for. 

What does a day as Legal Head & Company Secretary look like? What are your roles and responsibilities? 

Phew! Too much on the platter on a given day - working on multiple issues simultaneously while managing and dealing with various stakeholders’ interest and manoeuvring teams - ranging from providing claims opinion, to legal advice on business issues, reviewing new regulations and notification, providing legal sign off on new product and process, negotiation of contract to handling escalations, responding to queries and advising on an escalated customer grievance, reviewing strategy on a litigation matter to responding to board matters and then dealings at group interactions on legal issues. Effectively, the key expectation of the role is to mitigate legal risk and devise sustainable governance framework. 

Your legal career has been nothing short of an inspiration for many aspiring and young legal professionals. Who are the mentors you have looked up to and admired? How have they helped you in shaping your career? 

Well! I certainly look up to my team and people with whom I work daily basis for all the inspiration and mentoring rather than idolising any particular single person. There are so many people around me who are doing their work much better than I am. I really get inspired looking at them and draw inspiration to improve my own. Most of my initial years were spent with formidable seniors, which kind of helped me to inculcate the DNA and understand the importance of hard work, being thorough and diligent, and an application and interpretation of the law. Knowledge is indispensable and so is being down to earth.  Most of the seniors and leadership team I worked with have been a great source of inspiration. I take regular feedback from them and try to implement improvement opportunities for a better version of me than I was yesterday. 

You have led your in-house legal team to win many accolades and awards. How did your team respond to Covid-19? What are some of the operational issues in-house company law departments are facing today because of the pandemic? From LMS to document management systems, is there a tech toolkit every company can adopt? 

Digitization and Automation especially large legal department is the key challenge and also the way forward. We are definitely an early adopter on process improvisation and also to have implemented digital tools in most of the legal operation process both in contract management and litigation management and this really helped to run the department business as usual including during Covid -19 situation. For eg. digital contract execution process which helped us to do draft, review and execute all contract including stamp duty payment through digital means without any physical movement of paper. The ISO 9001: 2015 certification audit was completed during COVID situation- all virtually due to the digitization of legal systems and process. Many solution and systems are now available, which I would encourage the team to look at it but customised as per your industry and business requirements. 

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

It depends – on the size, complexity, nature of business and industry. Frankly speaking, I would definitely see more and more in-house teams adopting technology, going for digitization and automation solutions and use technology as a tool including AI and Machine Learning for building efficiencies, reducing TATs,  monitoring and reporting and utilizing more time in decision making, strategy building and enhancing business acumen.  

What’s your take on Smart Contracts? Do you see them creating a win-win situation between technology, law and e-commerce? 

Yes definitely! There is a good use case for vanilla business transactions and obligations which can be designed and executed through the use of Smart Contracts. Financial Services has the potential to be an early beneficiary of Smart Contracts technology. Globally we have seen this being used in certain selected business transactions, while various POC are being also done in various areas. In future, we can see a large scale adoption in this aspect as we get more clarity on legal framework on block-chain technology in India. 

What are your views on pre-litigation strategies for in-house legal departments? Do we see more thrust on ADR mechanisms in the near future? 

Litigation is costly. Certainly, Companies and Law firms are also realizing this. Pre-litigation strategies definitely play a very viable mechanism to resolve disputes, particularly if these are of repetitive nature, the dispute is of low value or where the issue does not entail too much of unnecessary interpretation of the law. However, Assentio Mentium i.e meeting of minds is critical for its success. The mediation procedure is a good way to begin with. I suggest mediation procedure must be incorporated in the dispute resolution clause as a pre-litigation strategy. Courts are also encouraging to go for mediation and now it is not confined to resolving traditionally family disputes but commercial disputes also. The mediation process is kind of compulsory in commercial courts and consumer forums. India is also a signatory to the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements, popularly known as ‘Singapore Mediation Convention’ (SMC).  Therefore we can expect the legislative framework to align the existing processes and bring them in conformity with the SMC protocols  for the adoption of SMC convention in India. ADR mechanism is likely to gain importance in the future. Some recent steps taken like amendment in the Indian Arbitration Act for providing a time frame within which the award should be passed, schedule of arbitrator’s fees etc, provisions on conflict of interest are positive steps in this direction. The emergence of institutional arbitration will make this space more transparent and efficient. There are other issues which I will not dwell upon at this point of time as some more work needs to be done and we have a long way to go to make ADR mechanism as a preferred option for dispute resolution. But definitely, I do see this ADR mechanism emerging more prominently in the near future. 

What is your take on the notion of Work-Life Balance? What keeps you busy other than work? Tell us about your hobbies. What are your sources of creative outlet other than work? Any movies, work of art or books that have had a profound impact in shaping your personality? 

I believe work is life and life is work. So certainly, work-life balance for me remains more of a concept only because now you are available 24X7 at all times. Having said that if you love your work, and passionate about doing things differently, you ought to put extra efforts to stand out and you don’t count time and hours. Similarly, I don’t count or time my personal or family time too. So I end up doing so many things in a day which bring happiness to me whether at work or at a personal level. Sometimes it is extra at work and sometimes it's extra time with family too.  I enjoy cooking and definitely make a point to spend some time on the weekend mostly cooking. It’s almost a ritual now and last three years almost every week I am cooking something or the other dish. This is a great rejuvenation as it gives me a satisfaction of being creative on my own little way coupled with some writing and blogging about the history of the food. I have Instagram handle TheCounselChef where I post these delicious delicacies. I also love reading whenever I get the time and enjoy listening to music a lot. Music charges me like anything. I also love writing, and I wish I could spend more time writing. I enjoy watching movies, largely for relaxing and entertainment purposes. Coming to my favourite movie, Lagaan has a profound impact on me, It inspires me to manoeuvre the available resources in the best possible way, providing insights on working with teams, talent identification and motivation, the importance of purpose, collaboration and partnership, and self-belief to create a win-win situation. 

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?  

A law degree will provide you with a launchpad. But rest all is your attitude which will determine your altitude. The legal profession is challenging to be in-house or in practice. Understand your business and problem statement thoroughly, act as business enablers with the correct application of the law with solution orientation to make a difference. Think progressively and be updated and mindful about what’s happening around you.  Build partnership and collaboration, have an eye for detail and be well networked because time is the essence in legal and with changing time, your promptness with accuracy during difficult times will help you stand out from the crowd. Most importantly, be down to earth and take care of your team members and respect the people around you. These little things, amongst the basic traits of hard work, dedication and passion will drive the show for you. And lastly, LOVE YOUR PROFESSION.

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