Bombay lawyers do not know how good they are: Senior Advocate Zal Andhyarujina

Step into one of the oldest chambers in Bombay and you half-expect the antiquities to greet you. While the office carries that familiar old-world charm, it is deliberately modern. Walk further in, and one can find Senior Advocate Zal Andhyarujina at a desk lined with screens and remarkably little paper. Two cats hold quiet court nearby.

Andhyarujina was designated in 2020. His practice spans commercial litigation, international arbitration, banking and insolvency. He is a door tenant at Fountain Court, a prominent set of barristers' chambers in London. He is also Rhodes Scholar from Wadham College, Oxford. 

His father, the late TR Andhyarujina, served as Solicitor General of India and was regarded as one of the most consequential lawyers of his generation. The name carries weight. 

On a busy Saturday afternoon, Bar & Bench's Neha Joshi sat down with Andhyarujina for a wide-ranging conversation on the Bombay Bar, India's arbitration landscape and the weight of legacy.

Edited excerpts follow.

Neha Joshi (NJ): Could you tell us a little about your educational journey, leading up to the Rhodes Scholarship and Oxford?

Zal Andhyarujina (ZA): I did my schooling at Cathedral and then completed a degree in Economics and English Literature from St Xavier’s (Mumbai), which I thoroughly enjoyed. I then read law at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar at Wadham College. That was a life‑changing experience because Oxford gave me what I consider the most important thing any education can give: the ability to think independently, to think for myself and to learn by myself. That is something I use every single day in my practice.

NJ: How different was the academic experience at Oxford?

ZA: It was vastly different. Oxford has a unique tutorial system where, at the beginning of the week, you receive an impossibly long reading list and are then expected to return and discuss it with your tutor, one‑on‑one or in very small groups with an acknowledged expert in that field. It is an exclusive, discussion‑driven style of education, based on self‑discovery and self‑education, which is far removed from the more instruction‑based, In the Indian system where you are told, “These are the facts, this is the case.” At the same time, I greatly value what I learnt in India: my school was wonderful, my time at Xavier’s was brilliant and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

NJ: When you finished at Oxford, did you intend to come back to India, or were you thinking of staying on in the UK?

ZA: Like many law students who have gone abroad, there was a bit of a conflict in my mind. The Rhodes Scholarship is for three years and I had completed two, so I planned to come back, try my hand at practice here and if it did not work out, to apply again and use the third year. As it turned out, I loved practice when I came back and I never had to revisit that decision.

NJ: Today, you are known primarily for commercial work. Did you always plan to specialise in commercial litigation?

ZA: No, I don’t think that would be accurate. As a college student, you can have a broad idea of where you want to go, but you don’t really understand the nuances of the profession. When I came back from England, I worked for one year with Gagrats, which, at that time, under Jangoo Gagrat, was a formidable firm. Working personally with him was one of the best professional experiences I have had. The training I received there was immeasurable and I worked with several fine lawyers in that office. After that, I spent a year with what was then Amarchand Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co, with Marezban Bharucha. Marezban is a fantastic lawyer; I learnt a lot from him. Those were my formative years before I joined Senior Advocate Janak Dwarkadas.

NJ: What was it like training in his chamber?

ZA: Temperamentally, he is fantastically suited to the profession – very calm, very thoughtful, a very good and versatile lawyer. The chamber was laissez‑faire in the best sense; you did what you wanted and, much like Xavier’s, what you put into it determined what you got out of it. I was very fortunate to have that combination of good education and very good vocational experience leading up to my own practice.

NJ: You have been appearing in multiple forums – High Court, tribunals and arbitration. How did you navigate that phase in your early practice years?

ZA: The key for a junior is to have a varied and busy practice. Janak’s chamber was very busy. Because of him, the chamber attracted a lot of work and over time, I began to build my own. You have to go everywhere as a junior: the High Court was the mainstay, but I did a lot of stock exchange arbitrations – BSE and NSE – where I saw extensive cross‑examination, both in those arbitrations and in suits sent to commissioners. I must have done dozens of cross‑examinations. Drafting in those days was always done by the junior, so there was a lot of that. From fairly early on, I was also fortunate to get small briefs for appearance and I always preferred my own small brief over a large matter in which I was the fifth or sixth counsel.

I went wherever I was briefed: the municipal commissioner, a whole range of arbitrators - individual and institutional - the City Civil Court, the Company Law Board, the NCLT and on some occasions the Supreme Court. I also appeared before professional bodies such as those under the Chartered Accountants Act. As a junior, you can never say no; that variety is essential in your training.

NJ: You have built a strong arbitration practice along the way. How did that develop?

ZA: Arbitration became important for commercial disputes because commercial trials in court slowed down considerably. At one point, when I was a fairly senior junior, I had a lot of arbitration work, which was excellent training because you could do an entire trial in arbitration. Many arbitrators were former Supreme Court and High Court judges of great ability, so the experience was very close to what you would have in court. Over time, arbitrations themselves became more disciplined, adjournments became rare and you had to be ready on the day.

NJ: If you had to choose today between an arbitration and a commercial matter in the High Court, what would you pick?

ZA: I would choose the High Court every day. The experience is different: it is more stimulating, your opponents are often of a higher calibre, there is time pressure and the cut and thrust is greater. As my practice evolved to the point where I could choose, I increasingly gravitated towards court work. I still do arbitrations - mainly complex, high‑value international arbitrations and some high‑value domestic ones with good tribunals and strong opponents, but those are necessarily limited in number.

NJ: As a door tenant with Fountain Court and with your macro-view of cross-border disputes and arbitrations, what key elements do you believe are still missing in India's current arbitration ecosystem?

ZA: I would say I have a good macro view of both international commercial litigation and domestic litigation. I have seen international arbitrations and their enforcement, foreign parties litigating in India and I have given evidence abroad when Indian parties were involved, so I have seen the whole picture. There are several areas where we need to improve. The key to a good commercial resolution is speed and we are not yet at international standards on that. Another key aspect is detailed preparation by both counsel and arbitrators and we have some distance to travel there as well, partly because we are all so busy with the rest of our practice.

NJ: Do you see any shifts in how Indian courts approach arbitration?

ZA: Yes, there has been a very significant and positive shift. Our arbitration courts now exercise great self‑restraint and it is difficult to set aside an award, as it should be. In the last five years or so, courts have increasingly treated arbitration awards as decisions that are to be upheld and enforced as a matter of course. The experience with the enforcement of international awards is also broadly positive. Where we really lag is in the execution system, which remains very slow and antiquated; once you enter the execution process in court, the system itself needs a major overhaul.

NJ: Abroad, barristers might spend a year on just one or two arbitrations. Can an Indian counsel realistically do that, or is the structure of our bar different?

ZA: One problem is that we do not yet have a fully dedicated arbitration Bar, though this is changing. Increasingly, seniors of repute are doing, if not exclusively, then substantially more arbitration than court work. That said, I still think it is good to have a mix, because the court keeps you sharp, alert and current with the kinds of issues that are coming up. If I had a commercial arbitration, I would want counsel who still has one foot in court. We also need more institutional arbitration; ad hoc arbitration works well in some circumstances but offers much less advance visibility on how exactly the matter will progress. Once institutional arbitration is truly embedded here, it will bring useful changes. At present, for all our domestic arbitration activity, we still do not have a single Indian arbitration institute which commands global recognition. De facto, SIAC has become the Indian institute of choice for substantial arbitrations.

NJ: Within the judiciary, how do you see judges’ and seniors’ attitudes towards arbitration?

ZA: In Bombay, there is a clear judicial approach that what can be arbitrated should be arbitrated and judges are generally encouraging of arbitration. In Delhi, judges often attend arbitration events and publicly promote arbitration; that does not happen as much in Bombay, which comes down to a difference in professional culture. Bombay is a more understated Bar: the unwritten rule is that you should be known for your performance, not for what you tell the media. Having said that, we do live in a world where the media is important, so perhaps we need to find a happy medium and do a little more to support arbitration in Bombay, especially since it is the country’s commercial centre. The general feedback I hear is that in domestic arbitration, Bombay is losing ground.

NJ: You mentioned earlier that Bombay lawyers sometimes don’t realise how good they are. What did you mean by that?

ZA: I genuinely believe Bombay lawyers do not know how good they are. We are all very busy and we sometimes do ourselves a disservice, but if we were to prepare in a full‑throated way for an argument, I think we would be among the best anywhere. There are some very good barristers in Britain, but there are equally good counsel in India and Bombay has an outstanding Bar in that sense.

NJ: Your father, the late TR Andhyarujina, was one of the most consequential lawyers of his generation. What has it been like to grow up in that kind of legacy and how much did it influence your choices?

ZA: It influenced me greatly. I grew up in a house that was full of law books and legal texts. My father was not the only lawyer in the family; my grandfather was a lawyer as well, and a very scholarly one. My mother is also a lawyer and a highly qualified one. We believe she is one of the first Indian ladies to have completed an LL.M. from Harvard. What distinguished both my father and grandfather, I think, was their scholarly approach to work: they genuinely loved the exercise of law, believed in learning the law and regarded it as a noble profession. Money was never a consideration for them; they belonged to a school where learning, conduct and doing your best for the client, leaving no stone unturned, were what mattered.

NJ: How did that translate into your own entry into the profession, especially working alongside such a towering figure?

ZA: I had the huge advantage of having my father as an established lawyer who could guide me correctly on my career path, what to do and when. But from the outset, he was very clear on one thing: once I entered the profession, our relationship would be a professional association and we maintained that. In all the years, we rarely overlapped in practice. From when I started at the Bar in 1999 until he passed away in 2017, we worked together perhaps two or three times at most. We consciously kept a great deal of professional distance and I think it was very wise of him to insist on that.

NJ: Why was that distance so important for you?

ZA: Because there is a real danger of remaining in the shadow of a father or a godfather if you are constantly appearing with them. The distance allowed me to develop as a lawyer on my own terms, to grow in confidence and assess my own worth. When I returned from Oxford, we agreed that he would be in Delhi and I would be in Bombay. Looking back, that was a very wise decision. I inherited many advantages: his chamber, a rare collection of legal and non‑legal books and, to some extent, his name. But the rest I can say with confidence I have done on my own and I would not have been happy any other way.

NJ: The Indian Bar often grapples with questions of meritocracy and privilege. How do you see that debate?

ZA: I believe the Bar is, in its essence, a 100% meritocracy. You may be briefed once or twice because of someone else, or you may get a privileged introduction if you come from a position of advantage, but beyond that, you are on your own. Every day you are tested by the judge, by your opponents, by your colleagues and you cannot succeed on anything except your own merit. The Bar is full of examples of sons of famous fathers who have not succeeded and of people like my father, who entered the profession without godfathers and rose to the top. It is a grave mistake to imagine that just being someone’s son or protégé guarantees success; it does not.

NJ: For a young lawyer who wants to work in your chamber, what do you look for?

ZA: In my chamber, I currently have two juniors, both of whom are gold medallists and that is not accidental. The first thing I ask any prospective junior is about their academic performance, because I believe it is important as an indicator of capacity over the long term. I would only take someone if they have a proven ability. If the question is whether I would take someone purely as a personal favour, I might feel obliged initially, but I very much doubt they would last in my chamber.

NJ: There are several internship accounts online about your chamber. Many of them say you make it a point to involve interns and juniors in client conferences. What is your philosophy on how a lawyer should learn?

ZA: Of course, I involve them, how else will they learn? All of us learn primarily by watching. When I first joined Janak’s chamber, for about six months, all I did was watch him in conference. You don’t realise it at the time, but you absorb a tremendous amount from that. I watched him in court and I watched many others in court and in conference. The reality is that when you come out of law school, there is very little you can do until you are properly trained. You cannot even write a proper letter until then.

I spent a lot of time in the Bombay High Court library and that was invaluable. You see not only your own senior, but many leading seniors. You hear what kinds of matters are being discussed, and a quick walk around the court exposes you to a variety of advocacy styles. It is also useful because solicitors see you and know you are around.

My advice to young juniors is that you must be present and you must be seen; a busy chamber is a great platform for that because solicitors are constantly coming in and out. You learn from watching your seniors and others and you also learn a great deal from your early mistakes in court.

The first time you appear, you may not be able to get the words out of your mouth. The first time you draft submissions, you might write a long essay that is impossible to read in court, though you don’t realise it then. It is a bit like falling in love or learning to ride a bicycle: until you actually do it, you cannot truly understand what you should and should not do. It is an experience that has to be lived.

NJ: You seem to give your juniors considerable freedom to live through those experiences. Is that deliberate?

ZA: Absolutely. We all gain and learn through that experience; it is part of the informal training system that is one of the great strengths of our courts. That, in my view, is one of the reasons Bombay is what it is. Bombay lawyers have good manners and conduct themselves in a professional way because of what they learn in chambers. It is ingrained in us that we do not shout at each other or speak ill of each other; that is the culture we inherit.

NJ: Then there’s a story that you once told a junior not to call you “sir” because you hadn’t been knighted yet. Where does that come from?

ZA: I firmly believe the Bar is a brotherhood. One of the great privileges of being at the Bar is that you are entitled, in all seriousness, to call the leader of the Bar by his first or last name. I first observed this with my father: when people called him “sir”, he would say, “Please call me Tehmtan” or “call me Andhyarujina,” because you are part of the brotherhood.

In my chamber, nobody calls me “sir”! It would be unthinkable! Because you cannot have a genuinely good working relationship where you can speak comfortably, discuss points freely and get the best out of each other, if you both do not know each other well and there is a hierarchical barrier in the form of “sir”. I am totally against it.

The practice of addressing colleagues by first name is very important to our Bar’s tradition and to how we interact and get along. It is to the great credit of the older seniors in Bombay that they will never insist that a junior call them “sir”; if anything, they get tired of telling people to stop doing so.

A junior could walk up to someone as eminent as Fali Nariman and call him by his first name during a conversation and it would be perfectly consistent with our professional etiquette, just as it is in England.