Karishma Sundara recently started her own boutique law firm called Kintsugi Law, headquartered in Bengaluru. The firm will operate in the technology, media and telecommunications space.
Karishma studied law at the University of Cambridge and has worked with law firms like Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, Poovayya & Co., Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Trilegal. In a conversation with The Deal Matter she shared her thoughts about starting her own firm, and much more-
What made you decide that this was the right time to start your own firm?
There’s only so long that you can live in Bangalore without being bitten by the startup bug!
In all seriousness, though, having been embedded in the TMT space for the length of my career, the signs were unmistakable. With the pandemic driving tech adoption to unprecedented levels, regulation has since tried to keep pace – and continues to globally. It became clear this year that the time was ripe to shape a practice of my own – to harness domain expertise in a new avatar and approach emerging legal issues with a fresh perspective. After all, technology is innately disruptive. It learns from everything that came before it, then imagines the world differently. It’s a space where the road less travelled isn’t just celebrated; it’s revered. For me, it was time to follow suit.
You have worked with the biggest firms in the country. Would you want to replicate any aspects about them within your own firm?
Boutique practices are, by their very nature, distinct from larger firms in many fundamental ways, leaving limited room for replication.
TMT is such a rapidly evolving practice area. What are the most significant challenges you anticipate?
As a specialised practice, the rapid evolution of the governing framework is part of our raison d’être. One of the greatest boons of this, is that we will almost always be in unchartered territory – enabling us to test novel interpretations of nascent laws and compliance approaches in real time absent guiding precedent or an enforcement history. This will likely also present a challenge in that it will initially be difficult to predict with (absolute) certainty how a novel interpretation will be received. With time, however, necessary precedent should clarify this for each new law.
Do you think boutique law firms are more desirable for a country like ours?
Different types of firms – large and boutique – have a role to play in this ecosystem, and hold value for different categories of clients and legal work.
Boutique practices are specialist by their nature – they’re either designed to address a special category of clients or specialist practice areas. In both cases, though, they are intended to offer clients direct access to domain expertise, making them ideal for those seeking hands-on, dedicated legal assistance in these specific spaces.
Full-service, large firms provide clients access to multiple lawyers in various practice areas under the same roof. Typically, certain factors contribute to reliance on this approach. For example, a chain of trust: X trusts Y who trusts Z; therefore, X trusts Z. A strong network of distinct boutique practices working in tandem could achieve a similar effect, offering clients specialised attention and advice in connected matters. Similarly, heavier benches have traditionally enabled assistance with volume-based efforts. Today, however, AI-enabled solutions are stepping in to ease volume-heavy tasks. For non-volume-heavy matters too, critical analysis and domain expertise remain key, with leaner benches often better-placed to provide time-sensitive expert advice to clients.
Ultimately, different types of practices address different client needs, making each relevant in its own space.
Do you think an international academic exposure gives lawyers an edge when building a practice in India?
I think building a successful practice, regardless of a particular educational background, is a product of expertise, confidence, and hard work. A strong education can contribute to these factors.
For my part, I would not be who or where I am today without the wonderful education that I received, for which I am deeply grateful. I had the opportunity to study English Literature, Classics in Translation, and History of Art at the University of Edinburgh, later going on to study Law at Cambridge.
Both experiences shaped my life in different ways. Together, however, they inspired in me a love for learning and diverse viewpoints. Seeing learning as an end in itself has been a driving force in my career. It is what drew me to tech law all those years ago, and continues to draw me to this ever-changing practice area. Being open to diverse viewpoints, similarly, enables a multifaceted and multidimensional approach – something that is vital to developing nuanced solutions to legal compliance in an evolving space.
In the end, a strong education, whether received in India or overseas, provides a foundation that legal professionals build on – and, hopefully, harness – throughout their careers.
Kintsugi is such a unique name for a law firm, would you mind explaining the Japanese philosophy and how it ties in with your firm’s philosophy?
Kintsugi is a wonderful and layered concept. As an art form, it enables the preservation and transformation of older, ruptured objects (often, pottery). It does this by skilfully combining the older pieces to form a new whole, sealing them together with lacquer mixed with gold.
As a philosophy, it highlights sustainability, transformation, and resilience.
To me, the kintsugi process also reflects attention to detail, being undeterred by complexity, and choosing resilience over legacy – and, as a result, preserving the best of the old, while creating something new and lasting. I chose this name because I wanted to build a practice founded on this ethos, by harnessing my years of experience and channelling the best of it into this new practice. In many ways, this reflects the tech-driven space that the practice serves, which constantly harnesses what has gone before to build something new.
Ultimately, like the Japanese art that it is named after, Kintsugi Law focuses on sealing legacy gaps, and crafting creative, resilient solutions to emerging legal issues in this space.
