India can demonstrate through its domestic system why the world should bring international arbitration to India: Drew & Napier CEO Cavinder Bull

Cavinder Bull, CEO of Drew & Napier since 2017, has spent his tenure doubling the firm's headcount, doubling its partnership and building out a corporate practice to rival its dominant disputes and IP sections.

He also sits on ICCA's Advisory Board, has completed a term on the World Bank Sanctions Board and has represented sovereign clients including the Government of India in arbitration.

In this interview with Bar & Bench's Pallavi Saluja, Bull talks about why India is "hugely important" to Drew & Napier, what it would take for India to build a genuinely international arbitration institution and why he thinks hallucinations may, perversely, be a good thing to have happened to law firms using the technology.

Edited excerpts follow.

Pallavi Saluja (PS): You've been CEO since 2017, succeeding Davinder Singh, who left for private practice. What did you actually inherit in that moment - a firm in transition, or one that just needed continuity?

Cavinder Bull (CB): The firm at that stage was actually very strong and stable - that's what I inherited. When I took over, the partners were already talking about doing things differently. Since 2017, we've focused on a few things. First, growing the firm significantly in headcount. Within 6 months of Davinder and his team leaving, we were already a larger firm than before he left; today we're almost double the size.

Second was the growth of the partnership. When Davinder left, we had about 22–23 partners; we now have 48 - more than doubled. We're still one of the smaller equity partnerships among the big firms, and I like that we haven't lost that character - but we've opened the door to equity a bit more to bring in talent.

Third was becoming a more balanced firm. We have a strong reputation in disputes and we're the largest IP practice in town, with a large share of that market. But because we dominate in those two areas, our corporate partners hadn't necessarily had the support they needed to grow. Since taking over, I've wanted us to build a corporate practice strong enough to rival disputes and if that pushes us all further, even better.

Over the last three years, the corporate department has been our fastest-growing on a percentage basis. It's been a happy story, though not an easy one - our reputation in disputes makes it easy for people to assume we're not really a corporate firm.

We also wanted a genuine regional footprint. Fairly early in my tenure, we created DNA - Drew Network Asia. Rather than opening small outposts in Hanoi or Manila and pretending we could practise Philippine law, we wanted to keep working with the top firms in the region, but formalise it: one blue-chip law firm per jurisdiction, in a genuine network rather than a loose alliance. Persuading proud, independent firms to operate under a banner carrying the Drew name was the hard part, but the proposition was that branding together would let us pitch for multi-jurisdictional work the way an international firm does.

We started with Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia; we now cover all of ASEAN except Brunei. It's grown faster than I expected. In 2024, we had 97 multi-jurisdictional matters that no single DNA firm would have won alone; last year, more than 100.

One thing I've found especially valuable is our regional council - the managing partner and deputy managing partner from each firm, meeting twice a year to set direction. Sitting in that room, surrounded by that much talent, is genuinely something. We talk through the big issues affecting all of us and it makes leading a firm feel a lot less lonely. So far, it's been a success and it's opened up a new level of engagement on cross-border work.

PS: Drew & Napier operates under a Chairman-CEO structure, with Jimmy Yim now the Chairman. How do you actually divide day-to-day responsibilities?

CB: A true story: after we'd sorted out the more urgent matters when I took over, Jimmy said we should figure out our respective boundaries. I told him, "Jimmy, why don't you just be Chairman and I'll be CEO?" He smiled and understood immediately, we're both senior enough to know what those roles mean and simply perform them. There's no document spelling it out.

In practice, I run the firm day to day - partner conflicts, facilities issues, budget and expenditure matters; I sort those out. Jimmy brings a different level of wisdom, having been in the firm and the profession far longer than me. He weighs in on anything he wants, because he's involved in everything, telling me I'm on the right track, or suggesting I think again about something, but always leaving the call to me. I get a great deal of autonomy without feeling alone.

PS: You were appointed Senior Counsel at 39 - one of the youngest ever. Looking back, were you actually ready for it? Do you think Singapore has been a little conservative in appointing senior advocates?

CB: I thought I was ready when I was appointed; I was eager for it. Perhaps too eager. The first year as senior counsel is always difficult because you're now in a different league. So you're on all the short lists for the cases, but you're getting nothing. I had a couple of big cases that first year and that really helped. Becoming senior counsel meant that I suddenly got to be involved in even bigger and more meaningful cases. That's been rewarding. 

I don't think Singapore is appointing too few senior counsel. I'm not part of the decision-making pool for this, but what I would hope for the profession is that the Singapore senior counsel title doesn't become a hygiene factor for lawyers past 50. In some jurisdictions, a similar mark of quality starts out very exclusive, but becomes so normalised that a significant portion of advocates over a certain age get it.

It becomes meaningless to the public because it's supposed to signal something to people who can't otherwise tell whether they're getting top legal advice. I think that the quality of the appointment needs to be preserved. It looks to me like Singapore has managed to preserve that. The worst outcome would be many more senior counsel appearing and people internationally saying, "oh, that's the standard of a Singapore senior counsel now?" It carries a great burden. I think keeping it at a specialised level of quality matters for the development of the profession here.

PS: You've handled arbitration for sovereign clients, including the Government of India. What's different about representing a State in an arbitration compared to a commercial client?

CB: Political sensitivity is the thing one has to acquire. For a commercial entity, big or small, you have to understand the client's priorities quickly and that informs how you engage with the case. For a government, it’s on steroids – three or four times bigger, more complex and perhaps a little less intuitive. Commerce is built around a profit margin, easy to understand, basic economics. For governments, financial prudence matters, but so do symbols, processes and the long term. You need to learn where that government is in terms of its desires for the country, where it sits on its development trajectory.

That helps me understand what can be done and what positions could be taken, especially mid-hearing. When you're getting tough questions from a tribunal and have to give an answer that also accounts for all the policy considerations the government has, it's not satisfactory to say, "I'll come back to you on that." You want to give an answer and the only way is to understand that government. The best way to do that is if government offices give you time to engage and understand their perspective.

PS: Where do you see the next real growth in arbitration case load coming from? What kind of disputes are you seeing now and what is going to come?

CB: It's going to continue to come from Asia. I see the amount of development going on here and successful development will foster even more investment, which will naturally generate a certain percentage of disputes. We're seeing many cases in our international court and in the ordinary High Court in Singapore related to things happening in India. We're quite gratified that Indian parties seem comfortable arbitrating in Singapore. The size of Indian cases being heard here is growing, not just the number. At the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), we track and publish which countries contribute the most and India has consistently been one of the top two.

By industry, it's hard to pick one, because the more commonplace disputes - construction and infrastructure, M&A, JV - will continue as Asia develops. We'll naturally see more disputes relating to data centres, given how much money is being poured into that space and we're seeing a lot more relating to crypto too.

PS: You've done sanctions and misconduct adjacent work through the World Bank Group Sanctions Board. Are you seeing more arbitration disputes with sanctions or export control dimensions baked into it?

CB: Absolutely. I don't see these as just sanctions cases; they're an expression of the new geopolitical norm. A lot of the geopolitical norms I grew up with professionally are now under serious threat. Sanctions and tariffs are an expression of that. The geopolitical shifts, the contest between superpowers, the rise of huge economies like India and maybe Indonesia - these are shifting the norms and sanctions is one expression of the tension that creates.

PS: Can you talk about your involvement with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)?

CB: I joined the ICSID panel in 2016 as one of Singapore's nominees. I got my first case in 2017 and learned a lot from that experience. I was quite excited, because after a couple of decades in practice, it's harder to find something new that's interesting. Every case is new, of course, but to have a whole different area of work open up was precious. It exposed me to a new set of fellow arbitrators and counsel.

I’ve done ICSID hearings in Washington DC, Paris and London, as well as PCA cases at the Peace Palace in the Hague. These are always good occasions to see really top intellect on display. I’ve done more than 25 investor-state cases as an arbitrator and been counsel in a few more. It's an area I find very interesting and I'd love to do more, though I'd like to keep my commercial work as well.

PS: How important is India for Drew & Napier? If there's clarity on the Bar Council of India (BCI) Rules, do you think Drew & Napier will open an office in India?

CB: We would certainly think about it, while wanting to respect the rules there. India is hugely important to us and two of the biggest economies affecting us in Singapore are China and India. Singaporean firms like Drew have the language capability to reach both. We practise in English, so there's an ease with which we can communicate with instructing lawyers and clients from India. We find we can make a difference easily in an Indian case or transaction with a Singapore aspect. We've also historically always had a lot of India-related work,and we'd love to continue building on that.

If it became something the Indian establishment wanted to foster, we'd be very interested in being on the ground in India, but done in a way that our friends there understood we still value all our relationships with them. We wouldn't want to be the trailblazer here. We'd want to watch how the Indian government sees this and if there's a moment when it encourages that kind of office, we'd be in the queue.

PS: What would it take for India to build a genuinely world-class arbitration institution?

CB: It's a very different creature. The number of arbitrations in India is huge. Many years ago, speaking at a conference in Delhi, a judge asked how many cases SIAC gets. I said, quite proudly at the time, 300-plus. He was a little confused and said, "in India we have 4,000, 5,000 cases." I realised it was an entirely different scale. Many of those are small cases, of course, but Singapore's caseload today is predominantly international.

If India was to have a predominantly international caseload, it would have to first master domestic arbitration and deliver a good product there, because no one will bring international arbitration to India at scale if it hasn't got a good domestic system. I don't know enough about where India's domestic arbitration scene sits on that trajectory to say more, but I'd think you'd need to get that in really good shape first and build the arbitration bar that supports the next phase, which would be to double or triple the international work. India can demonstrate through its domestic arbitration system why the world should bring international arbitration to India at scale.

PS: You've watched Indian arbitration counsel, firms, lawyers in Singapore and in India. How do you think the professionalism, the caliber of Indian lawyers changed?

CB: The top bracket of Indian arbitration counsel are as good as anywhere. Language facility and confidence in using the language are very significant. In that top bracket, the intellectual capability is very, very strong. So there's no doubt about that. 

The challenge for the Indian Bar, as in Singapore, is to make that top tier bigger, so professionalism reaches further down. In cases where I've sat as arbitrator with Indian counsel appearing, you can see that the top-quality advocates aren't necessarily just the senior ones. There are a lot of young Indian counsel who very quickly understand arbitration and how to address a case. Indian lawyers generally work hard too, so they're well prepared and they're articulate - that makes a big difference.

PS: Drew and Napier is the oldest of Singapore's big four. Does that history actually mean anything to a client choosing counsel today?

CB: It matters a great deal to Chinese clients. There are a couple of other countries in South East Asia to whom it seems to matter a fair bit. Interestingly, when I work with American firms and they realise our age, they're usually quite surprised because many of the big name American firms have not been in existence as long as we have. It does help in some quarters. It matters to more people than I would have thought.

PS: Where do you feel the most pressure in terms of competition with other firms here in Singapore?

CB: In our disputes practice, certainly in arbitration. I rarely come up against Singapore firms there - usually it's international firms who are the applicants. In our transactional and corporate practice, our main competitors are still the other three large Singapore firms. In IP, we're dominant here, so our competitors are the usual big four firms except in patent work, where our major competitors are actually from Australia.

PS: In terms of clients getting a mandate, fee, talent retention - where do you see the most pressure?

CB: Fee pressure is real. We're not really interested in small-value work though we do some if we feel strongly about a case, or if there's a young partner building a relationship with the client. A substantial portion of our revenue comes from clients who understand why we price at a certain level and we're grateful for that. Many competitors run us down by calling us expensive. I don't think we're expensive; I think we're at the right price point, so that people who come to us do so for the right reason - they know their case needs this level of help. That's important for me to maintain, because it allows me to get the best talent. The best talent shouldn't just be asking, "what's my salary this year?", they should also be asking, "is this firm financially healthy in the long run? Do I want a career here?" Balancing that is financially prudent for both clients and talent.

PS: Your recent decision to promote Mahesh Rai and Foo Yuet Min, as Managing Directors of disputes practice, what's the strategy there?

CB: We have a management committee and sitting on the management committee, of course, the Chairman and myself, and we have heads of department for the three departments that Drew has. We appointed Mahesh and Yuet Min as managing directors of disputes, in what I would say is a generational change, a very necessary and deliberate transition from one generation to the next. What we really want is younger leaders, more energy, new ideas. The previous managing directors served very well, and when I broached this with them, they were like, of course, we think it's time too. 

It was quite good that on the same day they were appointed, I was able to appoint two new heads of the IP department. So two of the three departments acquired new managing directors, and they also are the same generation as Yuet Min and Mahesh. It's by coincidence that of the four of them, three of them are women. So that helps us to have a more rounded perspective in the management committee.

PS: You’ve spent almost your whole career at one firm. What's the version of Drew & Napier you want to hand to your successor? Do you have a timeline for that in mind?

CB: I'd like Drew & Napier, when I hand over to another CEO, to be known for strength across all three departments, and I feel we're not far from that picture. I'd also like each of those pillars to be strong enough to withstand turbulence as our profession changes.

I'd like to hand over as soon as somebody is able to take over from me. I love this job and I find being CEO of Drew very satisfying, but I'm also mindful of not overstaying my welcome. I don't know when that will be, but I pray a lot and ask God to tell me when it's time to go. I'm eager for the next generation to step up. I've been actively trying to develop leadership opportunities for certain people in the firm and watching how the partnership as a body reacts to them - something I've been consciously doing for at least three years. There are a number of people who could do the job and I'm hopeful that in the not-too-distant future, somebody will take over and get to enjoy being CEO.

PS: How and to what extent is AI being used by the firm?

CB: Our CTO is Rakesh Kirpalani, who is first and foremost an excellent lawyer, but he's also a real computer geek. He has led a lot of technology initiatives for the firm. As CTO, he also initiated a study on AI and then proposed what we should have. So we operate two AI systems that are available throughout the firm.

One of the things that's been helpful for the legal profession on AI is frankly the hallucinations. They have been helpful to us almost perversely, because they have put the brakes on law firms moving recklessly or too quickly into that space. It's made everybody take a breath and say, "Okay, hang on a second. We have to figure this out better." It's given us all a bit of time and space to develop that because the danger became so obvious.

Even clients who would want to save money and fees by using more AI have held back on that. We have to let this develop in the legal space. We're using this time and space to educate ourselves about it and then acquire more skill. How to use AI is a basic skill, today. Also one of the aspects is encouraging older partners like myself to use AI. It's not difficult to get them because once you get them, show them a few things, everyone gets excited and then you use it. We are in this period where we've been given some extra time and space to get our AI house in order. I think Drew is probably on the right track. Like many other firms, we are focusing on how to use it, when to use it, not about whether to use it.