The 10 Rising Law Firm Startups To Watch In 2019

Interview with Insights Success
Divorce Lawyer, Author and Columnist, who has been
fighting to get justice to numerous women across the social
demographic has now been empanelled by the prestigious
National Commission for Women to represent cases filed by
women or against them in the state of Maharashtra - which
are specifically referred by National Commission for
Women.
Renowned lawyer and columnist, Vandana has a thriving
law practice, and specializes in Divorce cases. BBC has
made a documentary, ‘Invisible Women of India, about her
work’. She is also the author of ‘Ex-Files-The Story of my
divorce’ published by Penguin under the Shobhaa De
imprint. Ex-Files is now part of the Judicial College
syllabus. Vandana has been involved with the family court
since 2001 in varying roles as a litigant then a counsellor in
running India’s first support group – “360 degrees back to
life”, has been lauded by Gloria Steinem, the world’s
foremost feminist who has endorsed her previous book.
She has also translated a book written by the Jain Saints.
Her work has been lauded both by the National as well as
the International media. She has been a panellist frequently
on BBC, NDTV amongst others and at various Literary
Festivals.
She is also Divorce Law Consultant for Priyanka Chopra’s
new film Firebrand, directed by Arunaraje Patil, currently
trending on Netflix and nominated for several Mahrati film
awards.
2. Kindly brief us about the initial journey and your
contribution towards the upliftment of the of the
company?
With a paltry sum of Rs. 750, I was the Daughter in Law of
a respectable family out on the streets at about 2 am in the
night with nothing but tears in my eyes, bewilderment at the
cruelty of my new found family of my husbands, yet When
I walked out, I had dreams in my heart and the grit and
determination to survive. I said to myself, “I must amount
to something in life. No one will ever trample upon me
again because I will be a ‘somebody’, and the ‘something’
that this ‘somebody’ eventually did was to not only turn my
own life around full 360 degree!) but also helped thousands
of other women, in similar predicaments seeking a new
identity and meaning to life.
My own divorce took 10 long years, but instead of sitting
and moping around looking for sympathy or being a victim,
I decided to be a ‘Victor’. I set up India’s first nonjudgmental
divorce support group for those going through a
divorce, which challenges the mores of a patriarchal
middle-class society that obviously has different rules and
expectations for women and then, wrote a book ‘360
degrees back to life - a litigant humorous perspective on
divorce’ based on the experiences of the support group.
Each time, a new obstacle came I just learned to either jump
over it or sidestep it. My father who was a fighter pilot with
the Indian Air taught me how to shoot down problems as
though they are the enemy and my mum taught me how to
be a risk taker. So essentially, I would think that the path to
be extremely empowered and successful in life is to let go
of negativity and only focus on positivity.
3. What are the distinct areas of practice of the
company?
The primary focus of Vandana Shah and Associates is
Family Law. We have experience of cases in Mumbai and
other parts of India.
As I have recently been empanelled by the National
Commission for Women to handle sexual assault cases for
them my firm has also begun to handle sexual assault cases
referred to us by the NCW. These cases are handled
pro-bono by myself and my associates.
I have also recently branched out into consumer law. This is
still an underdeveloped area of Indian law as not many
Indians are aware of their rights in this area. I feel they
would benefit greatly from the experience I can In addition
to litigation offered by Vandana Shah and Associates we
also have an application called Divorcekart, India’s first
legal app that focuses on answering legal queries regarding
27 JUNE 2019