Litigation Manager Legal (Litigation & Dispute Resolution)

ABOUT THE ROLE

You will own the company's litigation portfolio end to end — commercial disputes, arbitrations, recovery matters, contractual claims and regulatory proceedings. This is a coordination and outcome role: you will not typically appear in court yourself, but you will instruct and manage a panel of external advocates across multiple forums and cities, keep internal business teams aligned, and drive matters toward resolution rather than allowing them to drift. The company operates across multiple jurisdictions and forums, so comfort with running parallel matters at different stages is essential.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

External counsel management

• Act as the single point of contact for all external advocates, law firms and senior counsel across matters
• Brief counsel and review drafts — plaints, written statements, applications, affidavits, written submissions — before filing
• Track hearing calendars, ensure counsel readiness, and follow up on adjournments and non-effective hearings
• Evaluate and onboard new counsel; maintain a panel with clearly defined scope and fee terms

End-to-end matter tracking

• Maintain a live litigation tracker covering stage, next date, exposure, counsel and internal owner for every matter
• Prepare periodic status reports and dashboards for management and the board
• Flag limitation dates, statutory timelines (including Section 29A mandate periods in arbitrations) and filing deadlines proactively
• Drive matters to closure — identify stalled proceedings and escalate to expedite

Internal stakeholder coordination

• Work with Finance, Projects, Sales, Procurement and Operations to gather documents, facts and witness inputs
• Translate legal positions into commercial language for business teams and management
• Support commercial teams on dispute avoidance — escalation notices, demand notices and pre-litigation settlement discussions

Commercial and cost control

• Review counsel fee proposals against agreed schedules; validate invoices before payment
• Track legal spend by matter and against budget
• Assess settlement options on a cost-benefit basis and present recommendations

Documentation and risk

• Maintain case files, pleadings, orders and evidence in an organised, retrievable system
• Support contract teams with lessons learned from disputes — recurring clause failures, warranty/DLP issues, payment defaults

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• LL.B. from a recognised university; enrolled with a Bar Council
• 4–5 years experience in litigation — in a law firm/chambers with in-house exposure, or within an in-house legal team
• Demonstrated experience running multiple matters simultaneously across different forums
• Working knowledge of the Civil Procedure Code, Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996, Commercial Courts Act 2015, and NCLT/IBC procedure
• Strong drafting review ability — able to spot gaps in a pleading even where counsel has drafted it
• Proven track record of coordinating with external counsel and non-legal internal teams

PREFERRED

• Exposure to construction, real estate, infrastructure or manufacturing disputes
• Experience with arbitration proceedings (institutional and ad-hoc), including Sections 9, 11, 17, 29A and 34 applications
• Familiarity with legal-tech or matter-management systems, or having built a litigation tracker from scratch
• Experience negotiating counsel fee structures and managing legal budgets
• Multi-state litigation exposure (Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi)

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• Ownership — treats every matter as theirs to close, not merely to report on
• Follow-through — persistent with counsel and internal teams; things do not slip
• Commercial judgment — knows when to fight and when to settle
• Clarity — can explain a complex dispute to a non-lawyer director in five minutes
• Composure under deadline — same-day filings and urgent applications are part of the job