Deepak Kapoor is not a lawyer. His career path starts with a steering wheel manufacturer before moving on to a petrochemical industry and later, a financial services company. Teaming up with Sanjiv Saraf, he started Manupatra, India's most recognizable online legal precedent database. As of today, he is giving Lexis Nexis and Westlaw a run for their money. Bar & Bench converses with the Chief Executive Director and Founder of Manupatra.

The road to Manupatra

I commenced my career with Sona Steering Systems, an auto ancillary company in 1987. I recall being the first employee of the company and was involved with the promoter in every aspect of the company’s operation ranging from project implementation, financing, accounts, purchases etc. After 2 years with Sona, I moved to India Glycols, another green field venture.

In 1994, I joined 20^th Century Finance Corporation and was instrumental in opening the Delhi office and subsequently, another 10 offices across North India. From a one-man show, I took the manpower in the company to over 50 in North India. I also played a key role in raising a $47 million “India Direct Fund”, a private equity fund for investment in start up/mid cap companies and also served on the Investment Committee of the Fund.

These green field ventures proved to be my learning ground on how to create organizations from “ground zero”. I learnt to tackle wide range of issues across various divisions including human resource, accounts, administration, technical, etc. This experience proved beneficial in setting up Manupatra.

The Manupatra idea

In 2000, I joined hands with Sanjiv Saraf (CMD of Polyplex Corporation) to start a BPO. During that time Polyplex was involved in several anti-dumping litigations in the US and had hired several law firms in the US. The legal fee of these US law firms included payments made by these firms to Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw. We noticed that at times, almost 50 percent of the legal fee was for services provided by Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw to these US firms. That is when we realized the potential of Manupatra.

Setting up Manupatra

We spent about 2 years focusing on obtaining past precedents and had a phase wise approach to updating legal judgments and analysis. We faced several logistical issues at the initial stages. We met the Registrar, the Library Committee members of the Supreme Court and various High Courts and started building relationships. We realized that only Supreme Court judgments were numbered, while High Court judgments were not numbered and therefore it was difficult to track judgments.

The Dotcom bust

The Manupatra idea was conceived during the dotcom boom phase and was launched at a time when the dotcom bubble had just burst. Dotcoms were falling like nine-pins. To make matters worse, the media loved to write about ventures that were going down. Manupatra was born amidst this meltdown. However, even in the middle of the weak sentiments for dotcom companies, we realized that we were providing information which was required for business and there was value add to the end customers. There was clear visibility of return on investment for lawyers, whether law firm or a sole practicing advocate.

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