ADVOCATE SHUBHAM BORKAR

Question No. 1: Mr. Varun Kumar: Before starting this interview, how you would like to introduce yourself to our readers?

Answer Mr. Shubham Borkar: I introduce myself as a Student of Law owing to the fact that Law is one of the widest subjects and requires a lifetime to study. I have completed my graduation from prestigious National Law Institute University Bhopal and then worked with Tax Giant LakshmiKumaran and Sridharan Attorneys as Tax Litigator, and I am presently a part of Litigation Team of Khurana and Khurana Advocates and IP Attorneys.

Question No. 2: Mr. Varun Kumar: Tell our readers something about your school days and school activities. At that time, had you ever thought that you would pursue law as a Career?

Answer Mr Shubham Borkar: I did my schooling from St. Xavier’s Bhopal, back then I was an aspiring Automobile Designer, I had and still have a huge interest in Automobiles and took part in various Science Exhibitions and have won various awards for my school. I was also active in quizzes and debates and have won a few accolades there too. I never ever thought of becoming a Lawyer until my 12^th standard. If you ask me the reason for the same, the reason is,  I, like everyone else in my fraternity, was too busy running in the race, over occupied with schools, coaching, IIT preparations that I never relaxed back and thought “ Do I actually want to go into IIT’s” “ Is this is what I am meant to do” . Fortunately in my 12^th Standard, I joined an IIT preparation coaching; however, the mentor actually became my “Guide to success”. Late Maheswari Sir, in all his classes, emphasized more on widening one’s horizons, delving into the depths of self-introspection. I still remember while attending one of his classes, I realized I should pursue law, my command on English and abilities of Reasoning complimented this and I cracked CLAT in few months of preparations, not even a year.

Question No. 3: Mr. Varun Kumar: What motivated you to choose law as a Career? What is so special about this profession?

Answer Mr. Shubham Borkar: The Answer to this question lies in self-introspection, understanding one’s positives and negatives, giving priority the internal ability and ignoring the external aspirations. I looked inside found good learner, writer, and speaker a person who always had an instant reply to everyone question, argumentative, the undying quest for power I found my personality best suitable for a Lawyer’s Profile. There are many positives of being a Lawyer, you are aware of yours and society’s rights and obligations and hence cannot be defrauded or exploited. You also have powers to help any other who is being exploited, troubled, what more does a person need.

Question No. 4: Mr. Varun Kumar: Tell our readers something about your law school life and activities. Any experience that you would like to quote or share with our readers?

Answer Mr. Shubham Borkar: As I have already told, was never interested in becoming a Lawyer, hence never seriously focused on public speaking, as I felt I will never need this to become an Automobile designer. Therefore, whenever the tasks of public speaking were assigned to me, I made excuses to run away from it, however, whenever ultimately one fine day I was made to say anything on stage, I remember  I forgot my lines and was frightened till death, In short, always ended up making of mockery of myself at public speaking. I can bet that no one could have ever in the wildest of their dreams thought of me becoming a Lawyer and representing clients in Court.

Question No. 5: Mr. Varun Kumar: What is your role as a Senior Associate at Khurana & Khurana Law Firm? You have been associated with various Law Firms. Would you like to share your experience with our readers? Any tips for fresh law graduates who are planning to join Law Firms?

Answer Mr. Shubham Borkar: Khurana and Khurana Advocates and IP Attorneys is primarily a decade old IPR Firm, but, however, we are now venturing into different sectors like Corporate, Taxations, Secretarial Laws, Labour Laws and so on. I was working with the Indirect Tax Litigation Team of LakshmiKumaran and Sridharan Attorneys last year, I have been hired by Khurana and Khurana Advocates as a Senior Associate to handle the Tax and Corporate Litigations and Mandates of the firms, and I am also actively involved in the IPR Litigation representing the firm in various high stake matters. I also have the mandate of developing the budding practices which involve attending seminars and meeting clients on a regular basis.

Question No. 6: Mr. Varun Kumar: How does it feel to be a popular author on a platform like MONDAQ?

Answer Mr. Shubham Borkar: Mondaq is a top-ranked global platform providing most comprehensive online resources for professionals. Winning the Most Popular Article Award for three time in a row and being the Most popular author category for 6^th month consecutively is actually a matter of great pride for me, I now have more than 10 articles in Top 20 Trending List across a variety of categories ranging from Competition Law & Corporate Law to Government Laws and IPR and many others. For becoming a Most Popular Author one needs to compete with the Content writing teams of giants like Khaitan, Trilegal & others and even a lot of smaller law firms and Individual Practitioners and writers. Maintaining the top spot is always more difficult than achieving it. You need to improve more and more to retain your rankings and there are a lot like you would want your spot.

Question No. 7: Mr. Varun Kumar: What motivated you towards Legal Research Writing?

Answer Mr. Shubham Borkar: I started legal writing as a hobby, I wrote whenever I read something interesting which I felt is essential to be spread across. However with time when I gained popularity, people started approaching me with queries via LinkedIn and Emails, opinions on various issues, I started addressing their queries and responded via articles, this started a chain (article, queries, opinions, news articles) and so on. Involvement of reader is a blessing for a writer because it is the reader who makes an author popular, they shoot out questions and response, which further ignite a fire to write a better article each time. I have been approached by various Senior Attorneys and Partners also whenever I wrote something which falls in their zone; they guided me and suggested how to improve. I owe a lot to them too.

Question No. 8: Mr. Varun Kumar: Your legal articles have been trending on the above-mentioned platform for a long time. What’s the approach behind it?

Answer Mr. Shubham Borkar: The approach is pretty clear and simple, all my Articles are on recent issues, I write in easy English deliberately restricting the use of difficult words/legal words so that even a layman could understand whatever I have written, I focus more on comprehensiveness of an Article so that my reader does not have to search for other articles to fill in the gaps of my present Article.

Question No. 9: Mr. Varun Kumar: How do you determine your topic?

Answer Mr. Shubham Borkar: Determining the topic is the most crucial phase and requires some sincere efforts, to determine a potential topic, you need to be updated on each and every development worldwide in that area. I write across a wide variety of topics and hence need to continuously upgrade myself with each and every minor or major changes, amendments, developments, issues. There is only one way of doing this and that is reading, I spend most of my free time of the day reading legal articles, opinions, news and this what I suggest to everyone, there is no shortcut.

Question No. 10: Mr. Varun Kumar: How to write a good and proofread research paper?

Answer Mr. Shubham Borkar: The most important point is that one should never write under pressure/deadlines as the same will always hamper its creativity. I understand there are deadlines to everything, but I would suggest that one should take ample time in advance so that he does not have to rush in order to complete, Creativity is the most essential aspect of writing and is in direct co-relation to mental calmness, relaxation and peace. You would have heard of writers living in isolation for writing a book, now since, it is not possible for employed personnel like me to do that, however, I achieve the same by meditation, morning walks and a little me time. I always avoid writing under pressure and my present firm supports me and does not pressurize me to write something under deadlines which compliments my writing ability. For proofreading, I take a break and then read the article again without any pre-set notion to check whether the flow is correct and there are no gaps or grey areas.

Question No. 11: Mr. Varun Kumar: What kind of research do you do before writing on a topic? According to you, what points are important while writing on a topic and what are the basics of Legal Research Writing?

Answer Mr. Shubham Borkar: Each and every detail which is directly or indirectly related to the topic needs to be thoroughly read and analyzed. A comprehensive article cannot be written in absence of comprehensive reading. Especially in the context of Legal writing, one cannot afford to miss out anything when I say “anything” I mean it, a mere exception overlooked could prove to be fatal and can result in an incorrect conclusion.

Question No. 12: Mr. Varun Kumar: The Plagiarism has been a serious issue in the area of research writing. How do you tackle with this issue? Any tips that you would like to give to our readers?

Answer Mr. Shubham Borkar: We have specialized software to check plagiarism, we upload something only after checking the same, In context of plagiarism I would like to say that, Plagiarism is never ever a good option and serves no good, The entire idea behind Legal writing is to Identify gaps and issues and addressing them with the help of legal ability and jurisprudence, precedents, learning from the same and provide a food for thought to others. However, when someone plagiaries something, he not only copies the text, but also the mind and approach of the original writer and therefore can never learn anything out of it and make an Independent thought.

Question No. 13: Mr. Varun Kumar: What is your success mantra and what keeps you motivated in life?

Mr. Shubham Borkar: I habitually read spiritual texts especially Bhagavad Gita, and my success mantra is the same as I suggested to the fresh graduates, keep putting in your best in everything you do, you may or may not be benefitted initially, in fact, one should never think of benefitting out of his duties. Success is bound to come sooner or later. Keep Shipping!

Question No. 14: Mr Varun Kumar: According to you, how important it is for law students to do internships? Would you like to give any tips to legal interns?

Answer Mr. Shubham Borkar: Internships are equally important as academics for law students, If academics teach you the law then Internship teaches its applicability in the present field I did 10 internships in my five-year BALLB (Hon’s) program at NLIU. Always make a trajectory of yourself and act accordingly, decide an area of law that you want to pursue and intern in firms practicing that particular area of expertise. For e.g. Since I was interested in pursuing IPR as my area of expertise, I interned with IPR giants like Anand and Anand, Krishna & Saurashtri, IPR teams of LKS, Khaitan & Co and Kirloskar Group.