Jay Bhambhani is  a 2012 graduate of University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES), Dehradun and currently working as an Associate in ANM Global, a law firm based in Delhi. He was a student of July 2012 batch of Diploma in Entrepreneurship Administration and Business Laws offered by NUJS, Kolkata. Jay talks about his interaction with the course. Over to Jay.

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I was born and brought up in Delhi and also did my schooling from Delhi itself. I come from a business family and initially I thought that is what I wanted to do; which is why I to took a commerce background in school as well. I am a first generation lawyer and I chanced upon doing law through aptitude test results which said law would be my ideal professional choice. Initially, I had only thought I’d check it out, but I liked its prospects, especially the corporate side, after which I decided to get into it and have never looked back.

I finished law school in 2012 from University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, where through my course, I have specialization in Energy Laws.  I had interned with ILF Advocates, a law firm based in Delhi and Gurgaon.  I had a PPO from them and joined them right after my law school.  It was a great learning experience as I had exposure to be at the forefront of meetings and discussions and not just research and grunt work. After a year, I had joined my ANM Global, a Delhi based law firm where I have been working for just over two years.

Since it is a small law firm, it doesn’t have departmentalization, and hence I get to work on the forefront as well i.e. directly interacting and working with the client to form, shape and execute the project/assignment.

My work areas are very wide and include General Corporate, Transactional, Private Equity/M&A, Litigation and IPR. Primarily, my work includes planning, structuring, drafting agreements, documents and opinions in general corporate, compliance, commercial and transactions in various sectors including Real Estate, Telecom, IT, Private Equity Funds, Retail Trading and Pharmaceutical. Besides these, I am also singly handling various civil and criminal litigations of the firm, aside from assisting my seniors in some.

I came to know about the NUJS diploma course through the internet while I was doing some random searches. At the time I had just graduated and did not know much of the practical work that is required. At the workplace, I did not have immediate seniors through whom I could ask or learn from and when I saw the module I knew it would really help a fresher in learning the basics of corporate law.

My experience with the course was very pleasing. I was in the pioneering course and the people at iPleaders were really supporting and easily approachable. The most important thing that I learned through this course was that was able to figure out what sort of issues (on the legal side) an entrepreneur typically faces, whether initially or even after.

The course did help a lot. As explained before, when starting out, there is no one to help with the basic details. Even the ones which are in practice (those not provided in procedure but are accepted practices).

I was working for an app based start-up who were expanding into import – export of electronics to earn some side money. They had asked for a quick opinion for basic compliances and how to get going. I specifically remember the chapter for Import Export procedures in Module 2 which really helped me out to make the opinion asap, which would have otherwise taken more time. It really helped me to get to the main point without having to learn about the fundamentals myself. These are the sort of things, which are essential, basic and not difficult otherwise, but you don’t get to learn about these unless you chance upon them.

Also, my firm had started sessions at an incubation centre for start-ups where they could ask their legal queries. My firm used to send me to address their queries. As explained above, through this course I was able to figure out the typical issues an entrepreneur faces and through my legal skill set I was able to come up with solutions and answers to address these issues. It made it much easier to assist those start-ups accordingly as I was already prepared.

Module III (Corporate Governance) and Module IV (Raising Investments). These modules cover what typically a corporate lawyer works upon on a day-to-day affair. At the time when I was new, these really helped to establish and clear the fundamentals which meant I could clearly and easily concentrate on the issues of the client at hand and not waste time to research/understand the fundamentals.

I would really recommend this course to law students (preferably in their final year) and to freshers who are / who want to be on the corporate side as it really helps you develop your fundamentals as well as the practical updates. These have become especially important now since the enactment of the new Companies Act. There are very less precedents for the new provisions and it is important to stay updated with the changing rules and regulations of Company law, which are still at a nascent stage and are hence constantly being updated / changed.

 For the immediate future, my goal is to shift and concentrate mostly and specifically on Private Equity transactions and General Corporate and accordingly build myself in that area. For the long term, I would like to work in a law firm only in any capacity. I don’t like to believe in designations. My goal is to be the best Deal Maker and Negotiator in Delhi.

Apart from this, I also do stand-up comedy. I haven’t looked at it yet from an angle of making a profession out of it, but nonetheless, it is a great stress buster.