Friday, 4 June saw the successful conclusion of the IDEX Legal Awards 2020. The award ceremony was held virtually and was joined by industry leaders and eminent change makers of the legal industry. The IDEX Legal Awards has been celebrating the outstanding work across in-house and law firms for the past 9 years and is universally regarded as one of the most credible awards in the legal sector. It’s a pain staking process to win an ILA with the finest jury in the country looking for a clear articulation of outstanding work backed with supporting evidence. Impressing them with the quality of work as opposed to simply mentioning one’s brand name is what sets the ILAs apart. The jury look beyond the size or age of the company or individual and have picked up those who truly deserves to win an IDEX Legal Awards. Meritocracy delivered!
From 5 categories in 2012 to 23 categories in 2020, it has been an overwhelming journey from being India’s first awards function for the legal community recognising the best talent in the legal fraternity to being the most hard-won and coveted awards in the industry. Last year 2020, we achieved a record number of entries (400+) from more than 120 law firms and corporates making this year’s awards a fierce competition across all categories.
Commenting on the awards, Vikas Vij, Managing Director of IDEX Legal said,
“This year we saw countless examples of resilience and grit and we celebrate the human spirit among the legal fraternity. It’s never been an easy path for us to follow but we’ve been committed since day one to provide the Indian legal fraternity an awards process that they can proudly call their own knowing that the process has been built on transparency, fairness and a commitment to meritocracy meaning that regardless of stature, age, influence or reputation every lawyer has a chance to lift one of the ILAs each year. What it takes is the ability to articulate a great story and back that up with substantial evidence, hallmarks of great lawyering and our Jury are impartial and independent focused on recognising the best narrated stories, and those that demonstrate the ability to successfully tell that story have every chance of winning. The domestic award that can unabashedly sit on any mantelpiece.”
ILA 2020 Jury Members:
The ILAs are recognised for their impartiality and transparent review process and the process is backed by a panel of 12 leading Indian and international jury members, chaired by Mr. Mysore Prasanna, Former Group GC, Aditya Birla Group , Presently Corporate Consultant & Arbitrator. In addition the stellar jury panel comprised of:
Anubhav Kapoor – Director of Legal Affairs, Ford India
Anupam Sharan – Vice President – Legal, Connesso
Binita Modi – Director, iProbono
Deepa Baburaaj – General Counsel – India, The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America
Jonathan Middleburgh – Global Consultant, Middleburgh Associates
Lakshika Joshi – AVP Legal and Global IP Lead, Altran
Navneet Hrishikesan- Executive Director, Legal (Asia Pacific & Japan), Cisco
Shujath Bin Ali – General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer (India, Middle East & Africa, South East Asia), Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd
Valerie Bowles – Managing Partner, Silk Legal Consulting
Vijaya Sampath – Independent Director
Dr. Vivek Mittal – Global General Counsel, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories
ILA Title Partner:
Provakil, a new-age legal operations management suite provider for enterprises was the title partner for ILA 2020. Commenting on the awards and its legacy, Shashwat Sikka, co-founder of Provakil said,
“We are pleased to be associated with IDEX Legal and we are proud to sponsor this year’s IDEX Legal Awards! The last year has been one of the toughest for the legal community. We need to come together as one to support the ecosystem. Celebration of some of the inspiring stories of the year is one little aspect of this and we would like to congratulate all the nominees and winners.”
ILA 2020 winners:
| In-House Category | |
| Category | Winners |
| General Counsel of the Year | Vineet Vij, Tech Mahindra Limited |
| Young Achiever In-House Lawyer of the Year | Sagar Suresh Dhole, Mastercard |
| Best Banking & Finance Team of the Year | HDFC Bank Ltd. |
| Legal Department of the Year (Medium & Large) | HDFC Bank Ltd. |
| Legal Department of the Year (Small) | Biocon Biologics India Limited |
| Litigation Department of the Year | Ujjivan Small Finance Bank Ltd. |
| Best Pharmaceutical Team of the Year | Biocon Biologics India Limited |
| Best Use of Technology and Innovation by an In-House Team | ICICI Lombard |
| Law Firm Category | |
| Category | Winners |
| Managing Partner of the Year | Anirudh Rastogi, Ikigai Law (joint winner)) and
Priti Suri, PSA (joint winner) |
| Young Achiever Lawyer of the Year | Keystone Partners |
| Best Legal Advisor to Start-Up Business | Ikigai Law (joint winner) and C&C Advisors (joint winner) |
| Law Firm of The Year – Large (51+ lawyers) | Trilegal |
| Law Firm of The Year – Mid-size (11 – 50 lawyers) | Ikigai Law |
| Law Firm of the Year – Boutique (less than 10 lawyers) | C&C Advisors |
| India Desk of the Year | Allen & Overy |
| Dispute Resolution Law firm of the Year | DSK Legal |
| Employment Law Firm of the Year | Ikigai Law |
| Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code Law Firm of the Year | Link Legal India Law Services |
| Intellectual Property Law Firm | Anand and Anand |
| M&A Law Firm of the Year | Link Legal India Law Services |
| Regional Law Firm of the Year | Tatva Legal |
| Tax Law Firm of the Year | Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan |
| White Collar Law Firm of the Year | Kochhar & Co. |
On winning the Managing Partner of the Year, Priti Suri said –
“Thank you very much for this incredible honour, I’m delighted upon being chosen as the Managing Partner of the year from amongst a group of hugely deserving people. Winning an award always reinforces the constant value of interdependence for me as the recognition is not mine alone. With gratitude, I would like to say a big thanks to all our clients for their support, their faith and pushing us to do better every single time and to all my co-workers on whom I can count on anytime, to IDEX jury for choosing to recognize the work we have done.”
Mr. Sarath Mohan, Senior VP of HDFC Bank limited, commented –
“We are thrilled and extremely honored that we have won the Best Banking and Finance Team of the year award for the second time. We would like to thank IDEX Legal for creating this platform to recognize talent in the legal industry. “
Anirudh Rastogi, Managing Partner of Ikigai Law bagged several awards including Managing Partner of the Year, Law Firm of The Year – Mid-Size (11-50) Employment Law Firm of the year and Best legal advisor to start-up businesses. He commented-
“Thank you to the jury and IDEX Legal for this honor. I feel privileged and very happy and thank you for this recognition and it means a lot to us and our team.”
You can watch the recording of the ceremony here – https://youtu.be/etqF5m4I6R4
For more details, visit https://bit.ly/3uW0YA0 , or reach out to IDEX Legal at ria.rungta@ideas-exchange.in