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.
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