The 10 Rising Law Firm Startups To Watch In 2019

Samisti Legal
1The
Rising
LAW FIRM
To Watch In 2019
Starting a venture is an uphill task
which must be conquered in a
step-by-step manner. The first
step in establishing a successful
venture, entrepreneurs suggest, is
recognising the need of the clients and
capturing the requirement as an
opportunity. While practising in a
corporate set up in Hyderabad, Raghu
Babu Gunturu and Prashant Jain
noticed that a lot of clients in
Hyderabad were being serviced by the
firms from Mumbai. This arrangement
of working remotely had its own
limitation in accessibility and pricing
exposing a clear gap in the market. It
opened an avenue for mid-segment law
firms to come up where corporates
could get good professional legal
advice. This realisation led the duo to
come up with their legal firm
christened ‘Samisti’. The literal
meaning of Samisti is United or
together. Justifying the name, Raghu
says, “Whatever we do would like to
keep our interest aligned with that of
other stakeholders could be a client or
an employee who are our biggest
stakeholders.”
The Founders
Raghu has over two decades of
experience in corporate secretarial and
legal services. He brings in strategic
direction to the firm, mentors the team,
challenges the status quo to better it,
introduces new practice areas etc.,
Prashant Jain, an Advocate and a
qualified CS, has over a decade of legal
experience in niche areas of Corporate
laws. He is a dynamic young
professional, out-of-the-box thinker
“Samisti
continues to
track and learn
about evolving
business models,
best practices,
and global trends
in technology and
changes in the
legal landscape
for business”
with vivid and thorough knowledge on
the subject. He has extensively worked
on matters relating to Corporate and
commercial laws, Forex, start-up/angel
funding, Private Equity/VC
Transactions, acquisitions, structure
debts, Joint ventures, mergers,
de-mergers, representations in NCLTs
for IBC matters, M&A and O&M
matters, and all kinds of business
re-structuring, cross border
investments, and capital markets. He
has been sharing knowledge and
insights on his core practice areas
through the numerous speaking
engagements for which he is invited
from time to time. He is supported by a
team which consists of
interdisciplinary professionals like
advocates and company secretaries
who together leverage their
knowledge, expertise and experience in
providing quality legal services.
Services across Sectors
The initial years were tough and were
more towards laying a foundation. The
subsequent years saw an exponential
growth due to the good word
recognised by clients and word of
mouth publicity. The firm now renders
its services not only to clients spread
all over India but also to international
clients engaged in diverse businesses.
Samisti has a great client base of wellestablished
companies, institutional
funded emerging businesses and has
also been servicing start-ups and
incubation. It has been doing decent
work in transaction advisory for capital
raising, M&A, Insolvency
&Bankruptcy, and General Corporate
Advisory.
A few characteristics which set it apart
are a hands-on approach, deep
involvement with the clients to
understand their commercial intent,
thereby adding value to the transaction.
Samisti also closely works with
various overseas clients and has
informal affiliations with overseas law
and accounting firms. This has helped
it to garner valuable insight into
various legal and commercial needs of
those clients.
Prepping for Challenges
The firm believes that the legal
industry is quite fragmented with
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