And if I’m being real with you, we know this is not everyone, but at least in this part of the world, if you are an Indian, you most probably grew up hating or fearing lawyers, or both, with the narrative being “lawyers are liars” or “stay as far away as possible from lawyers/legal things/court kacheri.”
We don’t know where this narrative originates from.
Was it Bollywood? Is it something that was passed down to us from the generations above us? Or is it rooted in the real exploitative experiences of people, at the hands of some bad people in their capacity as lawyers?
We can’t say for certain.
What we do know is that we were taught that law is a noble profession.
The other thing about Lawyers is that people imagine them to be this boring, always in black & white, dressed in their suits & ties, cut & dry sort of people, or they imagine them to be this type of contentious & narcissistic lot, who go around preaching about “the law”, while constantly reminding everyone that they are a “lawyer”. That’s not a total misnomer, and sometimes we do fit in the above category. We are proud and total badass lawyers. But we are all so much more.
We serve everyone, but we especially enjoy working with creatives, startups, digital platforms, and the creative and technology industries generally, is because we are from the community, and we identify ourselves with other fellow entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, coders, gamers, crypto & tech lovers, pop-culture & anime nerds.
As lawyers, it gives us great pleasure in representing others from the community. Doing this not only gives us a sense of meaning and purpose, but it also excites us and makes us happy.
The core values that govern and shape our way of working are Freedom, Transparency, Trust, and Empathy. So when you talk to us and tell us that you have a cool radical idea, the next big thing, or any kind of creative project for that matter, you would figuratively see our “light bulbs” go on and see us completely geeking out with you, because we don’t want to just protect your idea, we want to participate, collaborate and build with you.
Similarly, when you talk about how someone took advantage of you, wronged you, stole your work, or didn’t pay you, we genuinely feel your pain, can really empathize with you, stand in your corner and fight for you.
Don’t get me wrong or misinterpret my words, the above is not some “come hire us/choose us pitch”, and by all means please use discernment and make your own individual call on that, however, I do hope that I have made some small contribution towards improving and changing the negative image surrounding lawyers.
Sincerely,
Shobhit Chaudhry