Second Innings of Legal Counsel Awards Takes Place at Mumbai

New Delhi, Delhi, India:The Ideas Exchange in association with Lex Witness presented The 4th Annual Legal Counsel Congress in Mumbai focused on helping General Counsel’s and Heads of Legal work towards attaining greater operational excellence and preparing them for the legal department of the future. The evening also hosted 2nd edition of the Legal Counsel India Awards at Hotel Trident BKC created expressly to recognise and honour the excellence amongst the corporate legal fraternity.

The conference was chaired by Nilanjan Sinha, General Counsel, GE Capital who had the privilege of introducing the Chief Guest, The Hon’ble Former Justice Deepak Verma, Supreme Court of India. Justice Verma briefed the legal counsel on strategies for effectively partnering with The Bench in order to expedite the judicial process for the benefits of the Indian legal system.

The Congress also saw a broad discussion on a very pertinent conversation led by Richa Naujoks, Co Founder, Society of Women Lawyers, on gender diversity and the role of women in legal leadership roles that left the audience stirred into deep introspection. Over the course of the day, Legal Counsel Congress and Awards (LCCA) kept the leadership momentum rolling by discussing topics ranging from the impact of technology on the In-House Counsels, followed by how the HR and Legal departments can jointly retain the best talent pool and develop future legal leaders for their businesses. In addition, the congress focused on preventive risk and corruption measures for the savvy General Counsel, followed by a very controversial and frank discussion led by Usha Amonkar, on striking the right chord between Law Firms and In-House Counsels and what in-house lawyers can do to ensure the partnership is a win-win.

The Congress concluded with another first for the LCCA, with the world's leading arbitration centers, LCIA INDIA, HKIAC, SIAC, sharing a platform for the first time in India with the arbitration guru, Hiroo Advani chairing the presidential style debate. The closure of the day witnessed the awards ceremony honouring the outstanding performances of legal India.

Sharing his thought process behind the initiative, Vikas Vij, Managing Director, The Ideas Exchange said, “The Ideas Exchange is committed to working with business leaders across sectors and business functions and focused on delivering knowledge based platforms for a discerning and informed industry to ideate and enable business exchanges in a creative, efficient and responsive manner. The Legal Counsel Congress & Awards is our creation to reinforce our dedication towards creating this benchmark for the legal community in India, ensuring they move from simply being legal guardians to being recognized as business heads and leaders in their own right”.

Commenting on the participation aspect, Shyam Grover, Group Editor & CEO, Lex Witness said, “At WITNESS we are delighted to have collaborated with Ideas Exchange yet again, to recognise and celebrate the excellence demonstrated by the corporate counsel community. These awards are meant to create an environment of mutual appreciation and admiration as the jury comprises of eminent professionals with impeccable track record in the industry. WITNESS would always thrive to support and be part of such initiatives in future.”

The Award goes to;

-- Amarchand Mangaldas won the National Law Firm of the Year Award 2013

-- BPCL became the Best Employer of the Year

-- Persistent Technologies won Best Use of Technology and Innovation Award 2013

-- Siemens awarded as Team of the year

-- IDFC’s Rajeev Oberoi bagged the General Counsel of the Year award with his young stalwart Rohit Sharma winning the Young In-House Lawyer of the Year - Male award

-- Kavery Madappa from BIAL took home the Young In-House Lawyer of the Year - Female award

-- Debolina Partap from Wockhardt built on last year’s performance by winning the Woman General Counsel of the Year award

Speaking on the occasion, PBA Srinivasan, Editor-in-Chief, Lex Witness said, “In-house counsel's roles and responsibilities have gone through sea change in last decade and they are now at the helm in decision making process in corporate environment. WITNESS recognises that with changing business dynamics, the corporate counsel have challenging work environment with domestic and cross border transactions increasing many fold. It is indeed very apt to award those who excel and create benchmarks. I am very pleased that WITNESS is a partner in organizing this awards evening”.

The 5th edition of this exclusive community forum for in-house counsel will return next year in 2014.

For the Editor:

About The Ideas Exchange (www.ideas-exchange.org): The board of directors for “The Ideas Exchange”, a division of IX Events Ltd has unique experience in the world of conferences and exhibitions. They have assembled a team of professionals that provide outstanding value and service to the European, African and Indian markets. Our expertise covers a wide variety of business sectors: from pharmaceutical to beauty, infrastructure to corporate governance. We focus on business-to-business exhibitions and conferences. Our offices are based in Mumbai (India), Johannesburg (South Africa) London (England), but our capabilities extend across Asia, Africa and Europe. We stage our own branded events and work internationally to make our events relevant to their geographical market. We produce everything from hotel-based conferences to major international exhibitions where our vision is to have business communities solve the big challenges of today and overcome the hurdles of tomorrow through our ideas exchanges.

About LEX WITNESS (www.witnesslive.in): India's 1st Magazine on Legal and Corporate Affairs, LEX WITNESS vows to be a high quality monthly magazine with the powers of fresh and original content that deals exclusively with subjects pertaining to legality. India's top notch practitioners and experts contribute in WITNESS with what we feel is relevant to all stakeholders in this profession, aiming at brainstorming between the legal luminaries. We are just the platform; the contributors can only be you. Read, share your opinion and support our idea in bettering this practice in all its aspects. With an initial circulation of 25,000 copies, Witness is available in all the major metropolitan cities and also has international circulations in the UK and US that prompt the global legal community to absorb the developments taking place in our legal process.

To view the photograph, please click on the link given below:

Winners at the Legal Counsel India Awards 2013 held at Mumbai on 18th January, 2013
Contact:
Rashi Jain Agarwal, , +91 9582555416
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