Akshay Jaitly on the Making of a Modern Indian Law Firm
Thu Jan 29 2026
Today my guest is Akshay Jaitly, the author of the recent book, Trilegal: The Making of a Modern Indian Law Firm. He is one of the founders of Trilegal and specializes in advising on energy and infrastructure projects. His research interests include power sector reform, the energy transition and public-private contracting.
We talked about how Trilegal grew in the context of India's market liberalization and sectoral reforms, different partnership structures, delegated legislation, regulatory capture, the alchemy between the founding partners, and much more.
Recorded January 6th, 2026.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
Learn more about The 1991 Fellowship.
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Timestamps
(00:00:00) - 1991 Fellowship
(00:01:11) - Intro
(00:02:20) - In the Shadow of Liberalization
(00:07:28) - Specialization
(00:20:55) - Delegated Legislation
(00:28:35) - Managing Risk
(00:33:30) - Dispute Resolution
(00:38:44) - Trilegal's Partnership Structure
(00:51:57) - Scaling
(00:59:42) - Design or Alchemy?
(01:05:08) - Regulatory Capture
(01:11:27) - Foreign Law Firms
(01:19:08) - Outro
More
Today my guest is Akshay Jaitly, the author of the recent book, Trilegal: The Making of a Modern Indian Law Firm. He is one of the founders of Trilegal and specializes in advising on energy and infrastructure projects. His research interests include power sector reform, the energy transition and public-private contracting. We talked about how Trilegal grew in the context of India's market liberalization and sectoral reforms, different partnership structures, delegated legislation, regulatory capture, the alchemy between the founding partners, and much more. Recorded January 6th, 2026. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Learn more about The 1991 Fellowship. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Akshay on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - 1991 Fellowship (00:01:11) - Intro (00:02:20) - In the Shadow of Liberalization (00:07:28) - Specialization (00:20:55) - Delegated Legislation (00:28:35) - Managing Risk (00:33:30) - Dispute Resolution (00:38:44) - Trilegal's Partnership Structure (00:51:57) - Scaling (00:59:42) - Design or Alchemy? (01:05:08) - Regulatory Capture (01:11:27) - Foreign Law Firms (01:19:08) - Outro