ABOUT US

Nishith Desai Associates is a research based international law firm with offices in Mumbai, Bangalore, Silicon Valley, Singapore and New Delhi. We specialize in strategic legal, regulatory and tax advice coupled with industry expertise in an integrated manner. We focus on niche areas in which we provide significant value and are invariably involved in select highly complex, innovative transactions.

The business model of our firm has become a case study in the field of management. International publishing house John Wiley has in its Sep-Oct issue of Global Business and Organizational Excellence developed and published a case study on our firm. Titled 'Management by Trust in a Democratic Enterprise: A Law Firm Shapes Organizational Behavior to Create Competitive Advantage', the article delves into the fundamentals of how our firm has grown to what it is today - based on a trust-based, nonhierarchical, democratically managed organization that leverages research and knowledge to deliver premium services, high value, and a unique employer proposition. Here is an introductory abstract taken from the piece attached in soft version for your reference.

Management by Trust in a Democratic Enterprise: A Law Firm Shapes Organizational Behavior to Create Competitive Advantage – Nishith Desai

The founder of Mumbai-based Nishith Desai Associates (NDA) built his law firm on a few powerful ideas: a trust-based, nonhierarchical, democratically managed organization that leverages research and knowledge to deliver premium services, high value, and a unique employer proposition that shatters many negative law-firm stereotypes. The author discusses the rationale behind NDA´s business model and its organization and talent framework, and tracks the firm´s philosophical genesis, which includes ideas from Mahatma Gandhi on democracy and from Charles Handy on trust in virtual organizations. He examines the implications of Handy´s Rules of Trust for HR policies and practices, and then he describes NDA´s approaches for creating challenge, growth, and rewards in a nonhierarchical structure; building behavioral competencies; balancing control with freedom; and other management practices that empower employees to act in the best interests of the firm and its clients. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Read the entire article: Management by Trust in a Democratic Enterprise

Business Standard, a leading Indian business daily published the essence of our management style and our journey of the last two decades as we´ve evolved into an independent global law firm in a very succinct and lucid manner in a feature titled "Shyamal Majumdar: NDA-A different approach" Published in July 2009, attached is a soft copy of this feature - perhaps of interest.

Read the entire feature: Shyamal Majumdar: A different approach