We are elated to announce that Anand and Anand has been recognized amongst the most innovative law firms in the FT Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific 2021 special report.
The Firm is the highest ranked Indian law firm and the sixth highest ranked Asia-Pacific headquartered law firm in this prestigious list which recognizes global law firms for innovation in the Asia Pacific Region. The firm is ranked 15th on the table of “future-ready” law firms in the Asia-Pacific region, that have noticeably embraced digital transformation and sustainability.
The report has featured the firm in the following three case studies on innovation in the Asia-Pacific region:
Practice of Law – Digital Advisers – India’s first Anti-Anti-Suit ad-Interim Injunction on behalf of InterDigital
The case study in the report mentions – “Acting on behalf of mobile technology company InterDigital, the firm filed the first anti-anti-suit injunction order in India. This is a court ruling to prevent a party pursuing an application for an anti-suit injunction. Unlike in other anti-anti-suit injunction cases, the anti-suit injunction had already been granted by the court to Chinese electronics company Xiaomi. The ruling allows InterDigital to continue to pursue an infringement case against Xiaomi.“
InterDigital was represented by a team comprising Managing Partner Pravin Anand, Partner & Strategist Vaishali Mittal, Managing Associate Siddhant Chamola and Associate Pallavi Bhatnagar.
Read More: Case Studies in Practice of Law
Practice of Law – Healthcare – Ruling regarding oppositions on behalf of Pfizer Products Inc
The FT Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific 2021 report features this case study – “The firm succeeded in opposing ‘pre-grant opposition’ to a patent sought by its client, Pfizer, in India. Opposition is a legal process that allows third parties to halt the award of a patent after an application is published. The ruling means a party bringing pre-grant opposition in India must now establish its identity and show it has relevant domain knowledge, which will help prevent opportunistic parties challenging patents in future.”
Pfizer was represented by a team comprising Senior Partner Archana Shanker and Director Gitika Suri
Read More: Case Studies in Practice of Law
People and Skills – Citizen Development by business staff using Design Thinking
The case study in the People and Skills section of the report mentions that the “Business staff at the law firm have been trained to be “citizen developers”. The initiative used design thinking – based on user experience, and testing via quick prototypes – and agile working principles along with the low-code suite of software developed by Zoho, an Indian company, to create new apps”
In addition to the above case study, the article on “Why Digital Demands Deep Thinkers” by Sarah Murray of Financial Times highlights this innovative project. It mentions that “Promoting the use of technology was why Indian law firm Anand and Anand chose Zoho Creator as a development platform. It requires only limited coding knowledge, enabling non-IT experts to become “citizen developers”. Among the resulting innovations was a virtual version of the firm’s annual carnival, hosted on Zoho Creator. Run during Diwali, the festival of lights, the virtual event let family members to participate for the first time, “engaging people during these tough times”, says Rajiv Maheshwari, Anand and Anand chief executive.”
The article further mentions that “The platform also facilitates design thinking, an approach that focuses on the user experience and relies on prototyping and testing to develop solutions to problems. “This is a sea change, as the user is also a process designer who can also implement the system on their own,” says Maheshwari.”
This project was curated and developed by a Zoho Super Users team comprising Philachui D. Sareo, Samiksha Konwar, Hema Adhikari, Pranav Kumar Thakur and Devendra Joshi led by our CEO Rajiv Maheshwari and supported by other core team members Sanjeev Sharma, Ashish Rai, Namrata Verma and Pratishtha Saini.
Read More: Case Study – People and Skills
To view the ranking table, click here.