The NUJS Kolkata 2006 alumni Tripathy began her career at ICICI bank and went independent in February 2009. She began specialising exclusively in advising emerging companies, start-ups and incubator accelerator business models since February of this year. Her clients were from the transport and finance sectors.

She commented: “It is a very natural partnership. [Verus has] been advising start-ups also. They wanted someone to come on board and give it the attention that it really needs. There’s a lot of hand holding in the case of start-ups. It needs the kind of attention which, if you’re a litigator, you cannot really focus on giving [a start-up]. Now they want to give it the attention they need.”

Joining Verus will also help her with the infrastructure to provide her clients dispute resolution services, she said.

Verus founding partner Krishnayan Sen commented in an email: “Verus has, since inception, been advising many start-ups and emerging companies from incorporating ventures, fundraising, protecting intellectual property rights, preparing entire contract suite to obtaining regulatory nods, resolving differences and disputes. The firm continues to advice a lot of entrepreneurs, particularly in the technology, e-commerce and logistics sectors, and we see a lot of energy in the start-up space.”

“Advising start-ups, I feel, requires a certain mindset; though the legal skillsets necessary may be the same as advising established corporates. Therefore, we are delighted to have Roochi on board, as a partner, whose time will be entirely dedicated to this important practice vertical. Verus itself is a start-up story; so many entrepreneurs in the start-up space will easily be able to relate to us,” he added.

Verus now has 30 lawyers including six partners of whom three, including Tripathy, are in Mumbai.

Sen noted on Tripathy: “We are also very happy to have our first woman partner on board.”