By Ramanuj Mukherjee
The following interview was given by Ramanuj to a journalist. A part of what is written here was recently published in India Legal Online magazine. The rest, however, has never been published but it is such good information that we decided to share it here.
(1) What is the job profile of a legal entrepreneur?
There is no fixed profile of course just like any entrepreneur. The challenge is to identify a problem that can be solved and then to deliver a solution reliably. A lot of challenges, people issues, regulatory issues, market challenges are bound to come up and the entrepreneur needs to solve them and expand relentlessly.
In my case, most of my time goes into creating new opportunities for my organisation and in making sure that the promises we made to our customers and students are delivered in reality.
(2) What kind of a person is suitable for this field?
Someone with leadership and problem solving skills and ability to envision a future that will inspire others, from employees, investors to customers. However in most cases people develop these skills on the job, no one is born with these skills.
(3) What is the range of expected remuneration?
The sky is the limit. You start small, sacrificing a lot – but legal entrepreneurs can earn crores on exiting a startup they have started.
(4) What is the scope of this line of work in the present scenario?
It is an exciting area, almost every week I am contacted by new people who have ventured into legal entrepreneurship recently. A number of my seniors and juniors from NUJS as well as alumni of many national law schools have started up, sometimes in legal domain and sometimes in unrelated areas. We have covered many such entrepreneurs’ insuperlawyer.in. Things have never been better for entrepreneurs. Seed funding is easily available, and it is possible to start and scale a business without external funding. It is possible to take on increasingly difficult challenges thanks to the kind of technology and infrastructure that has become ubiquitous now. This is an amazing time to work on solving the real problems faced by our people and organisations.
(5) What is your advice to young law graduates?
Do things that make a real difference in the world, and don’t run after CV material. If you invest even one hour every day for a real world project that you are passionate about, chances are that at some point you will be in a great position to do a startup. Don’t wait for graduation to do things. College is a great time to startup, because if you fail when you are young, it doesn’t hurt as much. You can build the foundation of your future empire in relative safety and low pressure environment while you are in college, so don’t miss out on that opportunity. Feel free to reach out to me if you think I can help.
Access to justice is very important and urgent in India right now, and only law practitioners alone won’t make a difference there. We need legal entrepreneurs and institution builders. Step up and make a difference.
