Known to his clients as the “big picture guy” Raian Karanjawala is the co-founder and managing partner of Karanjwala & Co, which he started with his wife Manik.

Read his amazing journey from a barsati (a one-room apartment on the terrace with a verandah outside) in Maharani Bagh,
New Delhi, with two desks, to one of India’s most influential law firms, serving everyone from governments and companies in trouble to celebrities and street vendors in distress.

ON IMPACT OF COVID-19

In the future, I feel that many conferences and meetings will be held virtually, and a lot of time will be saved and there will be much less going back and forth to hold physical conferences.

ON WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Right from the beginning of our careers, we had a policy of dividing cases between us. Manik (founding partner of Karanjawala & Co) has been the backbone of the firm and the harder working of the two of us.

However, once the children--Tahira and Niharika-- were born, she necessarily took on a lighter role for herself. Nevertheless, she always kept a supervisory check on the goings-on in office, and once the children grew up, came back to work in full sway.

Today, she periodically concerns herself with some select matters, and several of the partners of the firm, and naturally the children, often go to her for her advice.

                                                                                                                   Next: Changing-of-the guard

In conversation with Sangeeth Sebastian

Follow sangeeth @sangeethspeak