Owner Legal The
We chat to Sarosh Zaiwalla, Senior Partner of Zaiwalla & Co Solicitors, about Tony Blair, the Dalai Lama and the prejudice he has faced in his legal career
W
ith more than 30 years of experience in international commercial arbitration and litigation, and a successful
track record of more than 1,000 cases, Zaiwalla & Co Solicitors has come a long way since it was founded in 1982. Since following in his father, Ratanshaw Zaiwalla’s footsteps, and establishing the fi rst Indian law fi rm in the UK, Sarosh Zaiwalla has developed a worldwide network of professional and commercial contacts and clients – not least of all the Dalai Lama. Founder and Senior Partner Sarosh Zaiwalla
says: “I was fi rst attracted to law because my father was a solicitor. He was probably one of the fi rst, if not the fi rst, Indians to qualify as a solicitor in London. T at was in 1925. I always wanted to emulate him. From my perspective, the great attraction of a career in law is that
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it off ers intellectually challenging work and the opportunity for the smartest and hardest working to succeed. One is never bored as a lawyer. “We started our practice in the early 1980s
primarily as a shipping practice. One of our fi rst clients was the President of India, on whose behalf we fought many cases that grew out of India’s huge rice import market. Since then the fi rm’s activities expanded into Greek shipping and throughout the world. Along the way we attracted attention from clients outside the world of shipping, and the scope of our practice grew into major libel cases and large family disputes. Banking, energy and construction disputes followed. Now, there is no type of case that Zaiwalla & Co Solicitors is uncomfortable handling.” Despite Zaiwalla’s offi ces now being located on Chancery Lane in the heart of London’s
legal district, establishing the business was not an easy task at the beginning. He says: “Whilst I was training to become a solicitor at Stocken & Co I struck up a friendship with a Senior London Arbitrator named Cedric Barclay, who also guided me. He advised me to start on my own and not take a job in a City of London fi rm. He told me that I could easily fi nd employment with a large City fi rm but, not being of English origin, I would remain at the bottom and not rise in the fi rm. So I decided to take the challenge and start on my own, determined to do my best.” He adds: “I encountered many diffi culties when fi rst setting up my fi rm. Although I received a great deal of support from my local community, many in the British legal fraternity and especially those in the elite Commercial Court were not used to seeing a non-white solicitor appearing in court. T ere were the
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