Brief Case: Is Working In Law Anything Like Ally McBeal?

Corporate lawyer Debjani Aich discusses her work dealing with employment law, and shares the excitement of being in a field that never lacks for work!

In our new series, Brief Case, we will be meeting women at work in different fields, different roles, to get some insight into their lives. With more women joining (or aspiring to) join the paid workforce, we live in exciting times, and this is an attempt to chronicle those times, one life at a time.

Debjani Aich, a corporate lawyer, is Principal Associate at Kochhar & Co., Advocates and Legal Consultants. She graduated from the Law Faculty of the University of Delhi and started her career with a Delhi-based law firm.  She has been with the Bangalore office of Kochhar & Co. the past 7 years.

Full-time corporate lawyer also attempting to be a reasonably hands-on mum! I’m mother to an amazingly scrumptious, wilful, funny little girl who is 4 years old and is the joy and bane of her mum’s life. If I get any spare time out of this, I love to read, am obsessed with home décor and cushion covers and I enjoy travelling.

Why did you choose this field?

Ally Mcbeal swayed me! Jokes apart, corporate law was an emerging field in the early 2000s and was an extremely attractive academic proposition to me, involving both language skills and logic.

Describe your role so that it is understandable to someone who knows nothing about your industry!

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I am a corporate lawyer, with an emphasis on employment laws. As an employment law practitioner, this involves handling all aspects of hiring and firing employees, labour disputes, employment policies, etc.

What is the most exciting aspect of your role and your field?

As long as there are jobs in the market, I stay busy. Currently, the most exciting aspect of my field is the newly enacted anti-sexual harassment laws. I have a keen focus on this new law, one of the requirements of which is for employers to have regular training on.  I am now actively handling such trainings and am really enjoying this new aspect of my work.

What is the most challenging aspect of your role?

Disassociating yourself from the human angle of employment law.  This is not easy, especially in cases such as terminations or investigating harassment/ sexual harassment matters.

What is the most common misconception about your field?

That the practice of law is like what the movies and TV make it out to be.

If you had to change one thing about your field, what would it be?

Nothing.

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