This article is written by Mayank Bansal, a student of Diploma in Cyber Law, Fintech Regulations and Technology Contracts from LawSikho as a part of his coursework. He is currently pursuing his B.A. LLB course from O.P Jindal Global University and wishes to pursue technology law as his career. 

Introduction

Technology as a field is one of the most emerging fields and is surrounded all around us. In fact, today we have become dependent on technology in such a way that now we can’t imagine our lives without technology. Further, as a matter of fact, the use of technology is not limited to personal use of individuals, as even majorly every kind of business have adopted some sort of technology in their working model to smoothly fulfill the day to day activities.

Surprisingly, if we check the list of the biggest and wealthiest companies of the world, then one could find the list would be majorly filled with the tech giants of the world. But, do you think that such tech giants could flawlessly launch their technology throughout the world? Obviously, not because there are many legal regulations which need to be fulfilled before these giants could successfully launch their products and services in the markets. Therefore, with the pace on which technology is emerging, even the job opportunities for legal professionals are drastically increasing in this sector.

Further, even the working environment in the legal technology department is very thrilling and interesting as this is the only sector in which an individual is not given the same kind of work daily because things are changing at very rapid speed, there had been shift from digital contracts to digital signature to artificial intelligence to cryptocurrency and bitcoin etc.

Further, even the government of every country is finding it very difficult to accommodate new technologies because of their outdated legislation. For example, till today cryptocurrency is a major issue in India and there had been a heavy financial loss in this sector due to the closure of crypto exchange throughout the country. Also, to safeguard the physical market, recently the government of India had passed a bill in the parliament which imposed a heavy restriction on e-commerce. Although, due to this policy of the government, now there are rumors that Walmart is planning to disinvest from Flipkart. However, these rumors clearly showcase that government had been failed to impose appropriate policies due to which e-commerce giants will suffer in the coming years. But to safeguard the future of e-commerce, technology lawyers are required to fight against the arbitral policies of the government.

Even the financial sector of the country including NBFCs are implementing major digital transformations by putting their core activities online. Although, as the financial sector in the country is a heavily regulated sector with many restrictions imposed. Therefore, there is a necessity for the financial sector to involve a lawyer on every step they took to upgrade their system. Further to facilitate all of these things majorly every law firm big or small had put the dedicated technology team to handle all such situations. Also, as a matter of fact, there are only very few fields in the law, which could be as rewarding as technology law, as there are deep-pocketed clients in this field which do not hesitate to loosen their pockets to hire quality lawyers of the country.

Although, before starting the career in the field of technology law one should also find the best workplace/ firm, from which they should start their career but as there are so many successful and popular law firms in the country due to their well-known corporate practices. All of them are not considered to be the best firms to join specifically for the field of technology law. So, to help you over this matter I have done a little bit of research and compiled the list of top 5 law firms of India, which are the best place on which one should definitely try putting their hands.

Here is the list of top 5 technology Law firms in India

Trilegal

It was founded in 2000. Now it has more than 300 lawyers across the four offices in Bangalore, Mumbai, New Delhi, and Gurgaon. The firm provides legal services in almost all areas of law such as M&A, real estate, IP, banking and competition law etc. However, among all of this TMT team of Trilegal is considered to be one of the most advanced teams of the country. Moreover, according to RSG India Report, Trilegal has been ranked as one of the top 5 law firms of the country. Also, Trilegal had been ranked as one of the top 10 innovative law firms in APAC.

Moreover, since 2010 till today Trilegal has been consistently ranked as the no 1 law firm of TMT in Chambers Asia – Pacific. Further, this law firm is having a large clientele, consisting of the big tech giants such as Microsoft, Cisco, Hewett Packard, Intel, Wikipedia etc. Nowadays, this law firm is also assisting the government in drafting the data protection law of the country. Moreover, they had also helped in the rollout of the e-government foundation in relation to the variety of municipal corporation services and civil issues.

Trilegal had advised various multinational corporations on complex regulatory questions and had also drafted the strategy for them to make sure that these companies enter the market successfully. Moreover, Trilegal is one of the few law firms in India which had deep expertise in the area of technology. In case you would like to know more about this law firm and their practice areas, then you can visit their website.

Nishith Desai Associates

Their law firms maintain an impressive reputation in the practice area of TMT. Their core client consists of e-commerce companies, Software manufacturing companies, and gaming companies. Often, they furnish their advice on matters related to regulatory issues, data protection, privacy, and joint ventures & investments. In 2014 legal 500 has ranked Nishith Desai Associates as no 1 law firm in TMT law. Innovative lawyers Asia Pacific awards had awarded Nishith Desai as the second most innovative law firm in 2014.
Further, this law firm also has a large clientele, consisting of the big tech giants such as Amazon, Broadcom, E-bay, Facebook, Flipkart, Google, LinkedIn, Master Card, Nvidia, Visa etc.
Ms. Gowree Gokhale is a senior partner at Nishith Desai Associates, who heads the TMT department in Mumbai. Her advice has been highly praised in the industry, especially in data protection and e-commerce mandates.
TMT specialist at this law firm had provided strategic advice for more than 500 corporations in futuristic areas of law, relating to the blockchain, internet of things, robotics, Artificial intelligence, Drones, Virtual reality, nanotechnology etc…
Nishith Desai is a strategy as well as research-driven law firm located with offices in Mumbai, Silicon Valley, Bangalore, Singapore, New Delhi, Munich, and New York.

Cyril AmarchandMangaldas

This one is considered as the largest law firm of India with more than 625 active lawyers and 103 partners working in the offices at Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Chennai. Cyril AmarchandMangalaldas is undoubtedly considered as the top law firm of India in all the practicing areas. However, it is highly regarded for its TMT department. They are highly appreciated for the advice in the field of fintech, e-commerce and cloud-based services, data protection regulations, GDPR regulations for international businesses and data retention regulation.

As a matter of fact, this law firm had advised wealthy players such as Reliance Jio in relation to acquiring R COM assets, consisting of spectrum bands, towers, optic- fiber cable network etc… Further, recently they had also assisted True caller in becoming third-party application provider under NPCI unified payment interface framework.

The TMT department in Cyril AmarchandMangalaldas is headed by Mr. Asim Abbas, who has also instructed the players such as Microsoft in various matters including interconnection and cloud computing related issues.

Kochhar & Co.

This one is another leading law firm of India, which has a great presence with more than 200 lawyers working in offices located at New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Gurgaon and Hyderabad, and four overseas offices- Dubai, Atlanta, Jeddah, and Saudi Arabia. Kochhar & co have a distinct technology department with great expertise in e-commerce, software licenses, data privacy, and cloud computing. Kochhar and Co had been maintaining a very impressive list of clients which are famous tech giants of the world. They had also helped the telecom sector in VoIP implementation and bandwidth structuring.

The TMT team of this firm had assisted the Alibaba group in setting up cloud-based services and data centre in India and had even advised the famous content delivery system “Akamai” on TRAI regulation, net neutrality, and data protection. Further, they had also advised Fedex on launching courier tracking device and took approvals for its launch from Department of Telecommunication.
The department is headed by Mr. Stephen Mathias, which has a great experience in assisting international clients in technology-related matters. He is specialized in assisting matters related to technical issues, IT outsourcing, data privacy, and cloud computing.

AZB & Partners

 It is a corporate law firm which was founded in 2004. Today, the firm comprised of more than 90 partners, with its offices spread across Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, and Pune. The firm is well reputed for technology-related litigation. Further, they have a very strong presence in the sector of payment gateways as in the past they have assisted many mobile wallets and online payment gateways in setting up their technology in India, for example, they had assisted the google in setting up mobile payment service Google Pay in India. Further, they had also assisted Bharti Airtel on several transactions.

However, please note that this is not an exhaustive list. There are various other popular law firms which have dedicated technology law teams such as J Sagar associates, DSK Legal, ShardulAmarchandMangaldas, Khaitan& Co and few recognized small firms such as Ikigai Law and K Law. One could definitely try in these firms also in order to make a bright career in technology law. However, making a place in these firms is surely difficult but with the right set of skills and knowledge, one could definitely find a place for themselves in these firms.

Students of Lawsikho courses regularly produce writing assignments and work on practical exercises as a part of their coursework and develop themselves in real-life practical skill.