Rohan Bilimoria also shares what he loves most about being a Law Ninja
Rohan Bilimoria was always meant to be in law, it seems. Born to lawyer parents and a lover of legal media like John Grisham books and Boston Legal, he wound up becoming a corporate lawyer and legal entrepreneur before joining Law Squared earlier this year as its global community development lead.
In this April interview, Bilimoria shares what rejection has taught him about him, bringing together the in-house legal community across three countries, and keeping up with legal tech trends.
Both my parents were lawyers, and I loved “legal” movies and books such as John Grisham, Perry Mason, 12 Angry Men and Boston Legal, so it seemed like a good fit.
My favourite part of my “legal” job has always been negotiating a more favourable outcome for my clients, and my favourite part of my “Law Ninjas” role is connecting lawyers and law students across the world.
Other than the fact that I love building communities and connecting people, the key reason I joined Law Squared as their global community development lead is because the team has an incredibly unique and effective offering called Law Squared as a Service (LSaaS).
This model gives you and your in-house team extra legal support without adding headcount, use secondments or placement services, or instruct traditional law firms. For an agreed monthly fee, the model provides unlimited additional capacity and there are no hourly rates and no counting of time, so you’ll have complete budget certainty and you can flex up or down (and switch it on and off) as and when you need it. You will have one contact point (a LSaaS Relationship Manager – possibly me!) who will bring in other lawyers to add capacity or provide additional expertise as needed. This means that instead of getting the expertise of just one legal counsel, you will have access to a team of lawyers with specialised expertise and experience covering privacy + cyber, employment, corporate + commercial, disputes + litigation, and more. So if you have someone in your team who's going on leave soon, or if you have too much work on your plate, this model could do the trick.
I’m excited about something that hasn’t been formally announced yet, so stay tuned!
In the past year or so, my proudest accomplishment is that the Law Ninjas community has hosted seven General Counsel summits in India, Australia and South Africa which have brought together 1,400 leading lawyers from across the globe.
The biggest lesson I’ve learnt in the past year or so is about rejection. I've learnt that rejection shouldn't be taken personally, or as the end of the line. I've learnt that things usually happen for a good reason. And, above all, I've learnt that rejection should be seen as an inevitable part of life.
Rejection is going to happen to you, me, and everyone else in the world. It's going to happen over e-mails, over texts, and over phone calls. It's going to happen in our professional lives, as well as our personal lives. It's going to happen multiple times. And it's going to keep happening.
But regardless of what happens, never let anyone else dictate how you should craft your career, or build your business, or lead your life. If you know what you want to do, know that it's the right thing to do, and know that you're leading with your heart, just stay strong and keep pushing forward. Things will happen for you. And things will work out for you. Just in a different way than you thought they would.
There should be a greater focus on promoting mental health within the legal profession. It is a real and pressing issue that is often ignored or overlooked within the community.
The key challenge is to keep up with the latest trends in legal tech and find a cost-effective and quick way to implement and use tools to improve efficiency within the legal team.
I’m looking forward to bringing together the in-house legal community in Australia, NZ and the UK as part of my new role at Law Squared.
I’d be a DJ playing music festivals around the world, if I had any musical talent.
