Artha Group
Legal Associate
Location: Mumbai, Maharashtra
About Artha Group
Artha Group is a performance-first investment house managing ₹2,300 crores across domestic and international investment vehicles, including Category I & II AIFs, LLPs, and Private Limited companies. With active investments in 130+ startups, 32+ successful exits, and 10+ renewable energy projects. We operate at the convergence of capital precision and operational depth.
Role Overview
This is a corporate finance legal role, not a litigation position. The Legal Associate at Artha Group is responsible for the end-to-end legal integrity of the firm's investment transactions, fund documentation, vendor and commercial agreements, and regulatory filings. You will work across every stage of deal execution and fund operations, ensuring that Artha's interests are protected, its obligations are met, and its documentation is precise, enforceable, and defensible. While litigation is not the primary focus, you will be expected to be hands-on with the processes and steps involved in civil disputes, arbitrations, and related proceedings across Artha Group, and in dealing with external litigation counsel, government personnel, officers and departments, and administrative officials, working closely with in-house senior counsel throughout. You will also be a resource for the broader team, guiding analysts and interns on legal processes and building the institutional knowledge that keeps the legal function sharp. This role demands someone who is meticulous, fast, and deeply comfortable operating at the intersection of law, finance, and high-growth business.
Key Responsibilities
Investment Agreements and Transaction Structuring
- Review, negotiate, and finalise Shareholders Agreements, Share Subscription Agreements, term sheets, convertible note agreements, and all other investment-related documentation before they reach the signing stage.
- Ensure that Artha's investor rights, protective provisions, and exit mechanisms are fully secured in every transaction.
- Collaborate with the investment team to structure deals in a legally sound manner, ensuring full compliance with applicable regulatory frameworks.
- Maintain and update standardised term sheet and definitive document templates across fund entities to ensure consistency and efficiency across deals.
- Work closely with external legal counsel on complex deal structuring, governance matters, and rights enforcement.
Fund-Level Legal Documentation
- Draft, review, and maintain fund-level legal documents including Investment Management Agreements, Private Placement Memoranda, fund formation documents, and ancillary fund agreements across all Artha fund entities.
- Manage legal documentation for new fund launches and entity setups, ensuring all formation and registration requirements are addressed comprehensively from inception through ongoing obligations.
- Coordinate with the compliance team on FIU registrations, SEBI filings, and other regulatory requirements tied to fund structures.
- Ensure all fund documentation is current, consistent, and audit-ready at all times.
Contract Drafting, Review and Negotiation
- Draft, review, and negotiate vendor agreements, service-level agreements, commercial contracts, MOU agreements, and any other contractual arrangement the firm enters into.
- Conduct legal due diligence on all inbound contracts, identifying risk areas and ensuring that Artha's commercial interests and legal obligations are fully addressed before execution.
- Ensure all agreements are enforceable, accurately reflect the agreed commercial terms, and meet the firm's internal compliance protocols.
External Counsel and Retainer Management
- Manage the firm's relationships with external legal counsel across panel firms, ensuring retainer arrangements are scoped clearly, tracked diligently, and delivering value.
- Brief external counsel, including senior litigation counsels on dispute matters, efficiently, review their output critically, and ensure that legal spend is purposeful and well-documented.
- Maintain a live tracker of all external counsel engagements, retainer terms, billing, and matter status across entities.
Litigation and Dispute Tracking
- Track and manage all active litigation and dispute matters in coordination with external litigation counsel and in-house senior counsel, overseeing the procedural steps involved and ensuring timely responses, proper documentation, and resolution.
- Maintain a comprehensive litigation register across all group entities, with clear status updates and escalation flags.
- Liaise with government personnel, officers and departments, and administrative officials on dispute-related and administrative matters, managing the filings, representations, and follow-ups involved.
- Prepare internal briefing notes on active matters for senior leadership as required.
Legal Governance and Risk Management
- Maintain a legal tracker covering all ongoing matters, regulatory filings, compliance obligations, and document review statuses across entities.
- Proactively identify and flag legal risks associated with investments, contracts, fund structures, and operational decisions before they become issues.
- Provide internal legal advisory support to the investment, operations, and fund teams, ensuring decisions are grounded in sound legal thinking.
- Operate under tight deal timelines with precision. The ability to move fast without compromising legal integrity is essential.
Team Development and Legal Knowledge Building
- Coach and guide analysts and interns from legal and/or cross-functional teams on the legal processes, document standards and how to approach a specific document or its legal review in the context of venture capital transactions.
- Build and maintain internal legal knowledge resources including playbooks, templates, and process guides that raise the legal competency of the broader team.
- Conduct periodic reviews of legal documentation quality across the team and provide structured feedback to ensure standards are consistently met.
Who You Are
- A sharp, detail-obsessed corporate finance lawyer with a strong understanding of venture capital deal structuring and fund operations.
- Someone who reads the fine print, spots the gap before it becomes a problem, and closes documentation with the same urgency as the deal itself.
- Comfortable working across multiple matters and entities simultaneously without losing precision or rigour.
- A clear and confident communicator, able to brief investment teams and senior leadership on legal matters without jargon.
- Someone who takes pride in building systems and templates that make the whole firm more legally resilient, not just completing individual tasks.
Qualifications and Experience
- LLB or LLM from a recognised law school. Bar admission to practice law in India is required.
- 4 or more years of experience in corporate finance, venture capital, private equity, or fund management legal work.
- Deep expertise in investment transaction documents including SHAs, SSAs, convertible notes, term sheets, and IMAs.
- Solid exposure to fund formation, SEBI AIF regulations, and regulatory filings relevant to AIF fund structures.
- Experience managing external counsel relationships and retainer arrangements.
- Strong contract drafting and negotiation skills, with the ability to produce precise, enforceable legal documents independently.
- Experience working in a multi-entity group structure is a meaningful advantage.
Compensation
- Total Annual Package: Rs. 21,00,000
- Fixed Annual Salary: Rs. 18,00,000 LPA
- Annual Retention Bonus: Rs. 3,00,000, paid at the end of each year