The Seen and the Unseen - hosted by Amit Varma Ep 443: The Making of a Law Firm
Akshay Jaitly, founder of Trilegal and co-founder of TrustBridge, is a lawyer who built a modern Indian law firm and works on rule-of-law reform. He recounts Trilegal’s founding, values like meritocracy and lockstep equity, governance fixes after early ruptures, and how professionalization changed India’s legal market. He also discusses TrustBridge’s regulator work and practical policy implementation.
03:06:34
Founding Teams Need Both Luck And Deliberate Selection
- Founders were a mix of luck and self-selection: existing networks aligned with complementary temperament and trust.
- Jaitly credits both serendipity of connections and deliberate choice to include people who fit the group's culture.
Lockstep Sharing Enables Institution Scale
- The core partnership tradeoff is rewarding individual revenue versus firm success; lockstep shares risk and aligns for long-run institution building.
- Trilegal chose lockstep initially to avoid internal friction and foster firm-before-self.
Non Heritable Equity Prevented A New Family Firm
- Trilegal made equity non-heritable and didn't charge partners to buy points, deliberately avoiding family-firm dynamics.
- Jaitly argues this kept entry affordable, avoided founder retainment of control, and allowed broad wealth creation across 150 partners.
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Intro
00:00 • 3min
Akshay's recent work and TrustBridge
02:56 • 2min
Rule of law: principles and practice
04:50 • 4min
Top-down versus bottom-up lawmaking
08:40 • 2min
Fairness, predictability and economic outcomes
10:55 • 3min
Constitutional change and judicial interpretation
13:33 • 5min
TrustBridge's regulator work and AI analysis
18:09 • 3min
Power sector reform and implementation
21:36 • 48sec
Why do public-good policy efforts persist?
22:24 • 42sec
Evolving purpose and 'above my pay grade'
23:06 • 5min
Controlling expectations and endurance sport lessons
27:50 • 3min
Reading and writing routines
30:57 • 7min
Building a writing habit and the book idea
38:10 • 8min
Structuring the book and using Scrivener
46:23 • 6min
Recovering the fog of memory
52:28 • 7min
Early law firms and India's legal history
59:26 • 4min
Law firm structures pre-1991
01:03:45 • 3min
Corporate law's emergence after liberalization
01:06:50 • 3min
Analog to digital: research and legal intuition
01:09:20 • 8min
Founders, selection effects and partial outsiders
01:17:14 • 13min
How the founders met and the Châteauneuf moment
01:29:59 • 5min
Founding values: equality and client focus
01:35:16 • 8min
Choosing lockstep over eat-what-you-kill
01:43:06 • 6min
Lockstep mechanics and non-heritable equity
01:48:40 • 3min
Early ruptures: 2008 departures and fairness disputes
01:51:50 • 5min
2012 survey and institutional fixes
01:57:01 • 10min
Lateral hires, governance and transparency
02:07:11 • 10min
Early scrappy days and client acquisition
02:16:46 • 7min
Alan & Overy tie-up and professionalization
02:23:40 • 6min
Founder roles, stepping back and practice focus
02:29:47 • 4min
Impact on Indian legal market
02:33:19 • 3min
Wider impact and public-interest work
02:36:43 • 5min
Ten lessons for institution building
02:41:37 • 11min
Letters to a young lawyer: practical advice
02:52:14 • 13min
Outro
03:05:31 • 60sec
#39988
Trilegal
The Making of a Modern Indian Law Firm
Akshay Jaitly
Akshay Jaitly recounts the 25-year journey of Trilegal, describing the founders' decisions, culture, governance and the firm’s evolution within India’s changing legal market.
He combines personal anecdotes, interviews with partners, and reflections on institution‑building to explain how structures and values shaped growth.
The book delves into partnership design, incentives, crises (including the 2008 departures and 2012 survey), and the firm’s pivot points such as the Allen & Overy tie-up.
Intended for lawyers and managers alike, it extracts lessons on leadership, trust, and organizational design.
Jaitly frames Trilegal’s story as a broader lesson about building fair, scalable professional institutions in modern India.
#55127
Amicus curiae
Khaitan & Co is 100
Aditi Roy Ghatak
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An Indian lawyer in 2000 could not have recognised the legal ecosystem of today. One firm took India marching forward into a new world. Akshay Jaitly joins Amit Varma in episode 443 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe the rise of the firm he founded, Trilegal -- and the lessons he learnt during that journey. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Akshay Jaitly on Twitter, Linkedin and Nicheless. 2. Trilegal: The Making of a Modern Indian Law Firm -- Akshay Jaitly. 3. TrustBridge. 4. Climate Change and Our Power Sector — Episode 278 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshay Jaitley and Ajay Shah). 5. Blood on the Tracks -- Bob Dylan. 6. The Art of Reading -- Episode 120 of Everything is Everything. 7. Scrivener. 8. The Creative Act -- Rick Rubin. 9. Testaments Betrayed — Milan Kundera. 10. Amicus Curiae: Khaitan & Co is 100 -- Aditi Roy Ghatak. 11. The Broken Script — Swapna Liddle. 12. Swapna Liddle and the Many Shades of Delhi — Episode 367 of The Seen and the Unseen. 13. The Tocqueville Effect. 14. The Age of the Partial Outsider — Janan Ganesh. 15. Rahul Matthan Seeks the Protocol — Episode 360 of The Seen and the Unseen. 16. Privacy 3.0 — Rahul Matthan. 17. Letters To A Young Poet -- Rainer Maria Rilke. 18. Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia -- Sam Dalrymple. 19. A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders -- Jonn Elledge. 20. The Beginning of Infinity -- David Deutsch. 21. The Fabric of Reality -- David Deutsch. 22. A Gentleman in Moscow — Amor Towles. (Also watch the series!) 23. Mobland -- Ronan Bennett. 24. The Diplomat -- Debora Cahn. 25. Fontaines DC, Joy Division, Massive Attack, St Germain, Kruder & Dorfmeister and Tosca on Spotify. 26. Rock en Seine. Amit Varma runs a course called Life Lessons, which aims to be a launchpad towards learning essential life skills all of you need. For more details, and to sign up, click here. And have you read Amit's newsletter? It's madly active right now! Subscribe right away to The India Uncut Newsletter! It's free! Also check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. Episode art: 'Disrupt' by Simahina.