MUMBAI: When a law firm starts playing in the big league of global strategy, you know it’s thinking far beyond dusty courtrooms. Nishith Desai Associates (NDA) has just brought in two star players Chintan Vaishnav in Boston and Ritika Patni in New York to sharpen its edge in techno-policy, cross-border strategy, and boardroom advisory.
Dr Vaishnav, a futurist and techno-policy strategist, is best known for steering the Atal Innovation Mission at NITI Aayog and chairing the Startup20 Engagement Group during India’s G20 Presidency in 2023. With a Ph.D. in Engineering Systems and an M.S. in Technology and Policy from MIT, plus a B.A. in Indian Classical Music for good measure, he’s part scientist, part strategist, part storyteller. At NDA, he will spearhead work in AI governance, innovation policy, and public-private collaboration essentially, the legal brains trust for an increasingly tech-led world.
On the other coast, Ritika Patni takes charge as leader of NDA’s Global Legal Strategy Consulting Practice. A gold medallist from NUJS Kolkata and MBA alumna from Columbia Business School, she’s worn many hats corporate lawyer at Linklaters London, founder of wellness startup Arth, and consultant to Fortune 500s at Alvarez & Marsal. Her new brief at NDA: guiding cross-border strategy for technology, healthcare, and professional services clients.
The hires reinforce NDA’s unique “4D” model Practice, Industry, Leadership, Skillset which has long drawn in experts from outside the conventional legal track. It’s the same formula that brought in an engineer-turned-lawyer (Vaibhav Parikh), a surgeon-turned-lawyer (Milind Antani), a CA-MBA-turned-lawyer (Nishchal Joshipura), and a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence (Mihir Parikh).
Founder Nishith Desai calls the appointments “a commitment to embracing change and challenging conventional thinking” as NDA evolves into a strategic legal consulting powerhouse. With Vaishnav’s policy chops and Patni’s cross-border acumen, the firm looks set to blend law, leadership, and lateral thinking in a way few others can match.