IDEX Legal presents the 13th edition of The Legal Counsel Congress and 5th edition of IDEX Legal Awards

IDEX Legal presents the 13th edition of The Legal Counsel Congress and 5th edition of IDEX Legal Awards

Mumbai, 22nd April: In association with Thomson Reuters, IDEX Legal curated the 13th edition of The Legal Counsel Congress (LCC) and 5th edition of IDEX Legal Awards (ILA) at St. Regis, Mumbai.

India’s annual general counsel gathering, the LCC brought together global legal heads from across Asia, Europe, and the United States to address the challenges faced by GC’sas a result of their broadening roles as intrinsic business partners.

The LCC was presented by Thomson Reuters, the leading global legal technology provider. The Gold Partners for this gathering were Ropes &Gray and IndusLaw, Silver Partners wereFTI Consulting, Rajah and Tann and Trilegal. Vahura was the Talent Partner and Workshop Partner was Eversheds.

The thirteenth edition of the LCC brought together leading corporate lawyers to discuss challenges faced in their ever-evolving roles and how they continue to step up as the moral and ethical conscience of the business becoming intrinsic business partners for corporate India.

IDEX Legal also used the LCC as an opportunity to launch the first ever General Counsel Benchmarking Report in association with Thomson Reuters. The survey based on extensive GC interviews showcased the challenges faced by GC’s in today’s climate with regards to planning and operations of their legal departments. The survey analysis found that GC’s are now more open to expanding their legal team and cutting down on the use of external counsel. Moreover, GC’s are becoming involved in matters that are not just purely legal anymore but extending their reach into more strategic and business strategy related matters including compliance, risk and whistleblower roles. The special guest at the LCC,Mr. Santosh Hegde; Former Justice of The Supreme Court of India moved the audience with a stirring speech on Ethics and Morality in Public life.

Following the conference, the evening was marked by The IDEX Legal Awards, felicitating and honouring the best in the legal space.The ILA’s is recognised as the toughest and most rigorous awards in the region and is unique in clearly identifying those in-house legal departments, corporate counsels, managing partners, and law firms who have achieved excellence in their specific roles and clearly demonstrated that to our senior global jury.

As a part of theirphilosophy of showcasing the best of the legal fraternity, IDEX Legal again tied up with legal charities Thomson Reuters Foundation and IDIA showcasing some of the astounding work being done by lawyers around the region. The awards raised broke records in fund raising for IDIA, a project that empowers underprivileged students through legal education.

Winners at the fifth edition of ILA’s include:

Impact Person of the Year: Ret’d Justice Mr. Santosh Hedge, Former Justice of Supreme Court of India

Legal Journalism of the Year:MenakaDoshi

Woman in Legal Leadership, The WILL Power:KosturiGhosh- Trilegal

GC of the Year (Male):SaugataChakravarty, Siemens

GC of the Year (Female):Sonal Sharma, Atos

Partner of the Year: Payal Chawla- Juscontractus& Abhishek Malhotra- TMT Law Practice

Managing Partner of the Year:Rajiv Luthra, Luthra and Luthra Associates

Law Firm of the Year:Trilegal

Legal Department of the Year (Mid-large): Mahindra and Mahindra

Legal Department of the Year- Small (Small):Mindtree

The Rising star of the Year: Anjali Ghosh- American Express

Next-Gen In-House lawyer (Female):SheetalSawhneyKapur -PayU Payments Private Limited

Next-Gen In-house lawyer of the Year- (Male): AnupamSharan- American Express &SubhadipSarkar- Cognizant Technology Solutions

Social Impact Initiative of the Year: PoorviChothani, LawQuest

Start-up law firm of the Year: PLR Chambers- SuhaanMukherji

M&A Law Firm of the Year: ShardulAmarchandMangaldas& Co

Speaking about the conference and awards, Vikas Vij, Managing Director at IDEX Legal said, “The LCC is India's premiere thought leadership forum dedicated to bringing the in-house community together, with 80% of our audience being GC's or the second in command. Over the years we’ve been focused on evolving a platform that acts as a roadmap for the legal community helping them ideate solutions to the increasing challenges they face in their ever expanding roles. and we’re delighted our 13th edition of the LCC moves closer to that objective for GC’s across South Asia. This year at ILA’s, we launched our online submission system and brought in 4 international experts, making it more challenging than ever before strengthening our position as THE award of meritocracy and integrity within India. And two icings on the cake for us were Ret’d Justice Hegde’s valedictory speech looking at the role of ethics in professional and personal lives; and raising significant contributions for IDIA which will help educate underprivileged children looking to break into the legal profession.

About IDEX Legal:

A reputed and desired partner for the legal fraternity across India as well as international firms entering India, IDEX Legal provides a range of offerings from thought-leadership and networking events to training, development and consulting solutions for the legal community. With a network of over 5000 + GC’s and lawyers, our solutions cater to senior in-house and external counsel decision makers supporting them in implementing best practice and operational excellence across their businesses.