In this Eminent Conversation, Mr. Nipun K. Bhatia, CEO of Legal League Consulting, speaks with Mr. Yavisth Makkar* about his unconventional journey from Chartered Accountancy to becoming one of the foremost consultants in the Indian legal industry. Known for his multidisciplinary background, people-centric approach, and passion for innovation, Nipun shares how curiosity, resilience, and a drive to support the legal profession shaped his career and continue to inspire his vision for the future.

1. Early Life & Education

Q: If we were to start from the beginning, 25 years back, what kind of student were you in school - quiet observer, curious debater, or something else entirely?

I think I was definitely an out-and-out extrovert. I used to enjoy studying, but I equally took part in all the extracurricular activities. In fact, I felt left out if I wasn’t participating in music, dance, debate, or anything related to art. The more I participated in extracurricular activities, the more I developed confidence. While I was never avidly into sports, I’ve always been more in touch with my creative side - anything to do with creativity, imagination, or the artistic side of things is what I enjoyed. That said, I also devoted a good amount of time to my studies, and I think I was what you would call the ‘teacher’s favourite’ - the class monitor, the vice head boy, the head boy.

Q: Were there any signs back then that you’d eventually land in such a multidisciplinary, leadership-driven space?

I think I would never shy away from taking the lead. I wouldn’t call it the telltale signs, but yes, I was the class monitor. In those days, being the class monitor or head boy was a sort of badge of honour, which we all wore with a lot of pride. I was very close to all my teachers and our principal, and their involvement shaped a lot of what I am today.

With my ability to step in each time there was an event, people would say, “Okay, you take the responsibility for this.” I would gather people, brainstorm, and plan. So yes, if you call these early signs of leadership, then they were very much there. I loved to lead, I loved to take charge, and each time I was given a responsibility, I would get the job done.

Q: You were selected at the Faculty of Law, Delhi University. What were your law school days like, academically, socially, and personally? Were they intense, exciting, or a mix of both? Looking back, how did that phase shape you beyond just the classroom?

Contrary to my school days, I was quieter during my law school years and there was a reason for that. I did my law from the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, at Law Centre-II. Since it was 6 PM to the 9 PM batch, many of my classmates were people who were pursuing law in the advanced stages of their professional careers. I remember there were doctors, individuals who are now well-known politicians, and even some of our teachers who went on to enter politics.

I was quieter back then because the overall mix included people from very diverse fields and many who were significantly older than I was at the time. I think I was more in “sponge mode.” I truly enjoyed my studies and the interactions with people who were civil servants, doctors, or from Big Four backgrounds. The kind of discussions we had were intellectually stimulating. While I wouldn’t say I became an introvert, I was deeply focused on absorbing as much as I could from both classroom teaching and real-life interactions with people from very different walks of life. This helped me gain perspective on many things and shaped the way I looked at the world.

Q: After law, you went on to pursue Chartered Accountancy. Solely distinct fields from law. What motivated you to take up both?

Interestingly, while I obtained my formal Chartered Accountancy (CA) degree after law, I had been pursuing both qualifications in phases. There was a time when I was focused on CA, then I took a break to pursue law, and eventually gave my CA finals after completing my law degree. So, in a way, I was working on both intermittently and, at times, simultaneously.

If I’m being brutally honest, my interest in law actually began during my B.Com days. Back then, we studied a subject called mercantile law, and I found myself naturally drawn to it. I was curious to understand how the law shapes our daily lives. Even while preparing for my CA, I came across elements that were closely linked to law, and they always intrigued me.

The reason I chose to pursue law was purely out of interest. Words and sentences in the legal context can be interpreted in multiple ways, yet they directly govern our lives. I’ve often said that law is an applied science, it doesn’t function in isolation. What you read in a statute truly comes alive only when applied to real-life situations. That interplay between the way the law is written and the way it impacts us daily is what pulled me toward it.

As for CA, it is an extremely tough qualification. It makes you academically strong and commands immense respect, as Chartered Accountants are custodians of good financial practices, whether in audit, taxation, or advisory. But as lawyers, what we do in shaping how the country functions, how the judiciary operates, and how the common man derives rights from the supreme document, the Constitution, was deeply fascinating to me. Ultimately, that facet of law, the combination of intellectual challenge, real-world application, and its impact on society is why I decided to focus my career more towards law than Chartered Accountancy.

Q: How did you manage both degrees practically and mentally? Looking back, would you do anything differently?

I think every profession demands a certain level of discipline. If you’re not disciplined, you often end up being mediocre. Now, mediocrity is a choice, there’s no harm in it, and you don’t always have to be the high flyer or top performer. But personally, that approach never worked for me. I’ve always been someone who takes on more than they can chew. I’m not sure if that always guarantees the best outcome, but it has worked for me because of something called eustress, which refers to positive stress, the kind that comes from excitement and anticipation. Eustress has worked in my favor because I thrive on that adrenaline rush. I like having a day packed with work, getting a lot done, feeling productive, and then balancing it with periods of rest, rejuvenation, and time with family and friends. 

2. Early Career Choices & Transitions

Q: Your early career choices were unconventional - you even started out in the apparel company. When did the idea of consulting for law firms first strike you, especially considering that in 2010 it was still a growing and unconventional field?

Greatly by luck, partly by chance and definitely not by choice, that’s how my journey into the legal industry began.

I was working for an advertising agency that did extensive work for a leading apparel brand, and I joined them as an Accounts Manager. Within eleven months, I began to feel restless, I was only doing numbers and accounts. I decided that wherever I was, I needed to broaden my role. Around this time, Ms. Bithika Anand, the founder of Legal League Consulting, was looking to place someone at a law firm. While the role was for an Accounts Manager, I expressed my interest in taking on additional administrative responsibilities, mainly because it would bring me closer to the world of law.

It worked out beautifully. The placement was with Lall & Sethi, a highly reputed IPR law firm founded by Mr. Chander Lall, now a Senior Advocate and my first mentor in the legal field. Working with him was truly a ‘caterpillar to butterfly’ transformation. Year after year, I was promoted to take on bigger roles. HR came under my responsibility, followed by IT and automation. I became involved in developing in-house software, managing operations, and even running the investigation department, which included IP enforcement, conducting raids, and preparing investigation reports.

In just two and a half to three years, I gained end-to-end exposure to finance, HR, administration, IT, operations, and investigations. That golden period shaped much of who I am today, it gave me the hands-on understanding of how law firms are managed and operated, and it cemented my love for working in the legal ecosystem.

Q: Did you ever consider pursuing a conventional law firm or corporate career? If yes, what changed?

You know, I know it will sound very cliché when I say this, but I think I was meant to swim against the current. Anything that is usual, ordinary, or preferred is generally not preferred by me. So, if there is something I can do differently from how others are doing it, it really excites me.

I think, as part of some mediation or perhaps related to my official duties, I happened to visit court once and I came back with a huge sense of depression. When I was in court, I felt there was so much suffering in the world. I saw elderly people waiting, appearing extremely saddened by the system and by how everything is prolonged.

That one visit to Saket Court really changed my perspective because I felt that being here every day, amidst so much sadness, anxiety, and maybe even anticipation, people waiting for justice, lawyers trying to get them justice - was not something I could bring myself to do daily.

Yes, there are lawyers working in this area and people committed to this path, but I started asking myself: What can I do to make their lives better? What can I do to make their journey easier? I realized I would be better suited to working as a strong support system for lawyers rather than pursuing litigation myself.

Q: Looking back, how did your training as a CA shape your lens toward law firm operations and business strategy?

I think when it comes to finance and numbers, CAs are a complete package. We know ratio analysis, we can examine the books of accounts and quickly figure out what’s working well and what’s not, at least at a preliminary level. We’re familiar with the profit and loss account, the balance sheet, and cash flows.

This knowledge comes in very handy, and because we come from that field, we also understand how systems like TDS function, how GST works, all important aspects in a law firm setup. Every taxation-related change, every financial movement, every cash flow has a direct impact on a law firm’s financial health, just as it would for any other organization.

So my CA degree, and what I learned in that process, helps me immensely today. For example, when we advise law firms on a potential acquisition, synergy, or merger between two firms, there are certain terms and nuances that someone purely from a legal or consulting background may not be as familiar with. That’s where I get a little “extra edge” in my advisory role, I’m well-versed with the finance side of things.

Does it come in handy? Absolutely, yes. Does it add value? Without a doubt.

Q: What were the initial struggles in carving out a niche as a legal consultant when this industry didn’t even exist in India in a formal way?

I think the only struggle, initially, was that the industry was still warming up to the idea of sharing information with an external party. Law firms, by nature and rightly so, place a high value on confidentiality. They wouldn’t want to share details about their clients or the matters they’re working on. Since I wasn’t an internal part of the law firm, but rather an external consultant, this was a natural hesitation.

The challenge in the beginning was to convince them that while they were exceptional at their craft - lawyering, they might not have the same expertise in managing the business side of running a law firm. My task was to help them see that bringing in external, trained professionals could actually enhance their operations.

Over time, as we worked with our first few clients, that perception began to shift. Each new client added to our credibility, and our reputation for being reliable and trustworthy grew. On the confidentiality front, there were also concerns about how we would use their data. We addressed this by signing NDAs and making it clear that their data had no value to us beyond helping them in an advisory capacity.

Q: Were there moments of doubt early on where the consulting pathway seemed too uncertain? How did you push through?

I think I can speak for both Ms. Bithika and myself when I say that our journey has been driven by a shared passion to positively influence people’s lives and create meaningful change. Bithika, who was the CEO and CFO of Amarchand Mangaldas for more than a decade, back when it was the largest law firm in India, left that role to establish Legal League Consulting. I left my own job to join her in this venture.

What has kept us going all these years is that same passion. Even today, in our 25-member team, the two of us are still blessed with a childlike excitement. We talk multiple times a day, exchanging ideas - “What’s happening? What more can we do? We’re going international now; let’s think about acquiring new services.”

When people meet us, they see the genuineness in our approach and our sincere interest in their growth. We track everything - is their turnover increasing? Are their rankings improving? Is their market perception stronger? Are they winning more awards? Are they growing inorganically by onboarding new partners and teams? We have our own metrics to keep law firms looking ahead, and this authenticity is something clients value deeply.

That’s why, in our 15-year journey, we’ve had firms stay with us for 10-plus years in one capacity or another. Long-standing relationships like these are built on passion, self-motivation, and a genuine desire to make a difference in the lives of the people we work with and that, ultimately, is our driving force. 

 
3. Career at Legal League Consulting

Q: Ms. Bithika Anand founded LLC but what drew you to her vision, and what have you learned from working so closely with her over the years?

As I mentioned, she had worked in the finest law firms, and I was working with one of the finest law firms in IPR, which I would call my alma mater.

After a while, when I had put systems and processes in place in terms of operations, I felt that if I could lead a team of 80 people there, I could do this on a larger platform. I also wanted to influence more people, meet more people, and bring this sort of positive change to other setups as well and Ms. Bithika was doing just that.

When I bumped into her one fine day, the exact words that came from my mouth were, “I think you’re the best person,” because she had just established the firm a couple of years back and was meeting so many law firms. I said, “I think I would be very, very happy to work with you because I want to do this at a much larger scale. You have the scale, I have the skill - so let’s match.”

Whatever I learned from her in the law firm space is pretty much everything, but I think the biggest learning, as I always say, is authenticity. Consulting cannot be minus the emotions. The true essence of law firm management is getting into the details so that nothing slips through the cracks. You have to understand the DNA of a law firm. You have to understand the founders, their management style, and the vision of the managing partner.

What Ms. Bithika Anand has taught me is to take genuine interest in helping the people you work with. I think that’s one of the reasons why so many of my clients are actually more like friends now.

Q: How did your role evolve over time, from Senior Consultant to CEO? What do you think made that growth possible?

As a Senior Consultant, I was executing projects while working with Ms. Bithika Anand, who was guiding me on the contours of consulting. I came from an in-house background, working as part of a business support team in a law firm. Consulting, however, is a little different because, while your energies are very aligned to one firm when you are in-house, in consulting you have to multitask, every client feels that their work is important.

The first couple of years were about understanding the nuances of consulting: how much to give to each mandate, how to balance priorities, how to keep mandates running smoothly. The next skill I developed was knowing when to speak and whom to speak to. Bithika encouraged me immensely. She told me that if I wanted to grow further, she didn’t want me to be just a silent participant in meetings. She insisted, “If you are in a meeting, you need to speak.” Her approach made me feel important but also put healthy pressure on me - I had to come prepared, I had to master my subject, hone my people skills, and speak with confidence.

As I grew in my role, I started building and mentoring my own team. My career progressed from Senior Consultant to AVP, then VP, and eventually President, each step taking about two to three years. At some point, my focus expanded from merely servicing clients to institutionalizing LLC so that our delivery was not dependent solely on me. I wanted clients to have confidence in the entire team.

The final decision to take on the CEO role came during the Covid period, when we were transitioning from my role as President. In 2020, while most businesses were cutting costs and downscaling, we had some of our busiest, most efficient, and profitable years. The pandemic gave us a huge opportunity to experiment, expand our services, and increase our reach.

By then, a large part of our mandates were being serviced by me and my team. I was developing business, bringing in more clients, and deeply invested in growing LLC alongside Bithika. The journey from reporting to a mentor to co-creating with a mentor has been beautiful. We’re still building LLC together every day, setting new milestones, and aiming for new aspirations. It’s a transition I truly cherish.

Q: In a world where everyone’s talking about GenAI and legaltech, how do you see LLC evolving to stay relevant?

With GenAI entering the picture, there will be virtually no aspect of our lives left untouched. In consulting, the question is - how do we incorporate AI, digital tools, or learning models into our work?

Our approach is to combine our human expertise with technology. While we can feed our learnings into a model and use it for predictions, projections, drafting policies, circulars, or contractual documents, the real value lies in knowing what to feed into the AI and how to use the output. AI can be a fantastic research assistant, a first drafter, or a tool for financial planning and trend analysis but the input and application remain deeply human.

A law firm is not a generic business, it’s made up of founders, partners, and hundreds of people whose workflows and personalities differ. AI cannot, on its own, account for all these nuances. It can give you data mining, market trends, and first drafts, but turning that into actionable, tailored solutions is where consultants with domain expertise come in.

So, in a nutshell - are AI or Gen AI models useful in law for management? Absolutely, they are. They will give you immense sort of data mining. They will give you some reason they'll get you even practice development trends, but the drafting of the prompts and what information you feed in and the utilization of the end result will require the humans. 

4. Way Ahead

Q: If you could give one piece of advice to younger law students today, what would it be?

I know it's going to sound extremely cliché, but there are two principles I tell almost everyone when I interact with them: it’s about choices and enjoying what you do. Until such time you are enjoying what you do, it will never feel like a burden. So choose a field that you feel very naturally connected to.

Once you have made that choice - if you like it, fantastic. If you don't like it, change it. But don't crib about it. Cribbing is such an energy loss because it drains you of your energy, it drains the listener of their energy, and it puts forth a perception of you as a crybaby. Nobody likes to share energies with someone who is constantly negative, crying, complaining, or cribbing.

Make your choices wisely. You may end up making a little more money by doing something you’re not very comfortable with, but is that sustainable? Whenever you have that question, go back and ask yourself - is it sustainable? If I can earn a little extra money today but won’t be able to sustain it, then I would rather be okay with earning a little less and choose something I will really enjoy doing.

Because when you enjoy what you do, there is no end to the success you can achieve. Today, when you put me in front of law firm managing partners, founders, team members, juniors, paralegals, and business support people, I am there to resolve the issues of everyone because I can understand what’s impacting them and how it’s impacting the firm.

Q: Looking ahead, what’s next for Nipun K Bhatiaa? Are there areas or sectors you still wish to explore beyond LLC? Any entrepreneurial wishes?

The fabric of my identity is both within and outside of LLC. LLC is something I have derived my identity from. Even today, “Nipun K Bhatiaa” is almost synonymous with LLC, and I don’t see myself doing anything separate just yet - I’m still on that journey.

We are also expanding our horizons beyond India, exploring new areas we’ll soon be announcing - services around POSH, wellness and retreats, and even personal branding. There’s a lot on the cards, and you’ll hear more very soon.

That said, I won’t always exist only within LLC. Just as Ms. Bithika once made space for me, I know I’ll need to make space for others. We’re training our team to be entrepreneurs, not just consultants. We want to identify and nurture the future leaders in law firm management, building more entrepreneurs in this space.

On a personal level, I have aspirations in motivational speaking and authorship. I love expressing myself through words and hope to write not just on law firm management, but on subjects close to my heart, principles I believe in, such as the law of attraction, manifestation, the power of positive energy, and self-awareness.

I also want to do something for the law firm management community as a whole - to make it more close-knit, bringing together consultants and in-house professionals. Often, when I see lawyers struggling or feeling low, I tell them, “Here’s my number. Call me if you ever want to talk.” One conversation can change someone’s life. Many have told me that a simple discussion gave them clarity or at least someone to listen.

Eventually, I’d like to combine my work in law firm management with these elements, showing how professional success can be shaped by mindset, manifestation, and self-awareness. That’s something I would definitely want to do in the future. 

* Conducted by Mr. Yavisth Makkar, Internship Coordinator at CLAonline and a 4th Year Student of Law at Symbiosis Law School, Noida.