Practice Overview: Adrija Bairagi practices before district courts in West Bengal, while also appearing before the Calcutta High Court. Her practice focuses on child protection, domestic violence, POCSO cases, matrimonial disputes, and maintenance proceedings. Alongside courtroom work, she remains closely engaged with community-based efforts to prevent child marriage and ensure child safety. Her work frequently involves assisting survivors in initiating criminal complaints, navigating police procedures, and sustaining matters through the early stages of legal action.

Feminist Approach: Adrija understands feminism as a commitment to equality in rights and outcomes, particularly for women and children facing structural disadvantage. Her feminist practice is reflected in both preventive and remedial work intervening to stop child marriages where possible and pursuing legal remedies where harm has already occurred. She approaches lawyering as both a legal and social responsibility, grounding her practice in attentive listening, sustained engagement, and a focus on the lived realities of women and children navigating the justice system.

Institutional Development: Her work highlights gaps in early institutional response, particularly in police handling of child-related and domestic violence matters. She uses available procedural remedies to prompt appropriate action where complaints are delayed/ignored. Through her experience, she has developed a practical understanding of evidentiary and procedural barriers that often prevent timely intervention, shaping her emphasis on accessible, district-level legal responses.

Professional and Personal Journey: Adrija decided to pursue criminal law at a young age, despite having no family background in the profession. She began community work on child safety in 2019 through an NGO and trained for three years under a senior practitioner. After graduating in 2023, she began working under a State Advocate at the Calcutta High Court while taking up independent matters in lower courts. An introverted listener by nature, she values preparation, observation, and consistency as central to her legal practice.

Practice Overview: Mangla has been registered since 2011 and practices before the District Courts and High Court of Delhi. Her work includes family disputes, domestic violence matters, neighborhood-level conflicts, and documentation support for accessing welfare and protection mechanisms. She assists clients with filing complaints, navigating administrative procedures, and coordinating with relevant authorities, particularly in situations where unfamiliar processes and institutional delay can impede access to timely relief. Alongside her litigation practice, Mangla is a co-founder of Part III: Action Research & Resource Centre, an organization that works on addressing gender-based violence and violence against marginalized communities through legal support, research, and community-based initiatives across Delhi, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh

Feminist Approach: Mangla frames her work around empathetic listening and respectful engagement. She supports women who face social and emotional barriers in approaching institutions, guiding them with clarity and patience. She prioritizes accessible explanations and acknowledges the structural challenges women navigate within their families and communities.

Institutional Development: Mangla’s institutional engagement includes assisting clients in filing complaints, securing documentation, coordinating with police authorities, and navigating welfare departments. She places emphasis on consistent follow-up and procedural clarity to ensure that cases do not stall within administrative systems. Through her work with Part III, she also contributes to broader community engagement and research efforts aimed at strengthening institutional responsiveness and translating constitutional protections into lived realities for marginalized groups.

Professional and Personal Journey: Mangla’s practice has been shaped by sustained engagement with women in distress and by her commitment to patient communication and steady guidance. Over time, this work has reinforced the importance of combining individual legal support with collective, community-oriented approaches. Her long-term aspirations include strengthening community awareness, improving access to institutional support, and expanding her capacity to guide women through legal and administrative systems in ways that build confidence, dignity, and trust.

Practice Overview: Jhansi Geddam has been practicing since 1999 and appears before the High Court of Telangana. Her work focuses on cases involving discrimination and violence against Dalit and Adivasi women and girl children, including domestic violence and matters under the POCSO Act. Her practice engages deeply with issues of caste-based exclusion, mental health, and access to justice. She regularly represents survivors navigating legal processes shaped by social pressure, institutional resistance, and systemic delay.

Feminist Approach: Jhansi’s legal practice centers on building resilience and confidence among women and children who have experienced violence or discrimination. She works to ensure that survivors are able to pursue justice without coercion, whether arising from family, community, or institutional pressures. Her approach reflects a commitment to strengthening the use and implementation of special laws intended to protect women and children, while remaining attentive to the ways in which caste, gender, and social marginalisation intersect within legal processes. She is also mindful of ensuring that caste minorities and gender minorities are not rendered invisible within formal systems of protection.

Institutional Development: A significant part of Jhansi’s work focuses on addressing institutional gaps, including delays in complaint registration, investigative lapses, and weaknesses in prosecution. She undertakes sustained follow-up with police officials, public prosecutors, Directors of Prosecution, and relevant government departments to support timely action, compensation, and rehabilitation. She also conducts legal clinics that bring together officials, prosecutors, survivors, and witnesses to review case progress, identify procedural bottlenecks, and strengthen coordination across the justice delivery system—ensuring that legal protections translate into meaningful outcomes.

Professional and Personal Journey: Jhansi’s long-standing engagement with survivors of caste- and gender-based violence has shaped a practice grounded in persistence, accountability, and survivor support. Over time, her work has reinforced the importance of sustained institutional engagement in securing justice for marginalized communities. Her long-term goal is to contribute to a legal system in which Dalit and Adivasi women and children can rely on effective protection, timely enforcement, and the rule of law as a lived reality rather than a distant promise.

Practice Overview: Dyutimala Bagchi practices before the District and Sessions Court at Alipore, South 24 Parganas, and has been registered since 2001. Her work focuses on matrimonial disputes, domestic violence matters concerning women’s rights within the shared household, and cases involving children under the POCSO Act. She regularly assists survivors of domestic violence, trafficking, and child abuse in accessing legal and administrative remedies. Alongside litigation, she engages with mediation and pre-litigation dispute resolution processes, supporting alternatives to prolonged and adversarial proceedings where appropriate and safe.

Feminist Approach: Dyutimala’s legal practice is grounded in the belief that access to justice depends not only on formal remedies but also on awareness, dignity, and informed choice. She places emphasis on helping women and children understand their rights, available legal options, and the implications of different courses of action. Her work reflects a commitment to client-centered support and confidence-building, particularly for individuals from economically disadvantaged backgrounds who may be engaging with courts or authorities for the first time. She also promotes mediation and dialogue as meaningful avenues for resolution, alongside formal legal processes.

Institutional Development: Dyutimala has been actively involved in institutional training and awareness programmes relating to the POCSO Act, Juvenile Justice Act, and the POSH Act. She has conducted police training programmes on the Juvenile Justice Act in collaboration with NGOs and District Police Authorities and has facilitated training sessions for Juvenile Justice Board members and POCSO support persons across multiple districts of West Bengal. These engagements, organized in collaboration with the Department of Child Rights and Trafficking, West Bengal, reflect her role in strengthening institutional responses to cases involving women and children through knowledge-sharing and skill-building.

Professional and Personal Journey: Alongside her litigation and training work, Dyutimala has mentored and trained young lawyers and law students across West Bengal. Her professional journey reflects a sustained effort to combine courtroom practice with education, training, and institutional capacity-building. She views awareness-building, mediation, and skill-sharing as essential to improving institutional responsiveness and strengthening access to justice for women and children over time.

Practice Overview: Abhigna Mandava practices before the District Courts of NTR and Krishna and the High Court of Andhra Pradesh. Enrolled in 2022, her work spans criminal law, family matters, employment-related disputes, and land-linked concerns. She represents low-income workers, project-affected and displaced families, and individuals facing wrongful or malicious accusations.

Feminist Approach: Abhigna’s legal practice is guided by a commitment to equity and client participation. She prioritizes ensuring that clients understand their legal position, are able to make informed choices, and are treated with dignity throughout the legal process. Her approach combines empathy with clarity, and she uses legal procedure not only to seek relief in individual cases but also to question practices that disproportionately affect individuals on the basis of caste, gender, class, or economic vulnerability.

Institutional Development: Abhigna assists clients in accessing welfare entitlements, raising concerns related to wages and employment conditions, and seeking redress from relevant authorities. She also supports families affected by displacement and land-related disputes by guiding them through documentation requirements, administrative follow-ups, and procedural steps with local offices. Through this work, she addresses the procedural barriers that often delay or prevent access to entitlements, particularly for workers and families with limited resources or institutional familiarity.

Professional and Personal Journey: Abhigna’s professional journey reflects a sustained commitment to working with individuals who are routinely excluded from legal protection. Alongside her litigation practice, she is engaged with land and environmental concerns through legal advocacy and research. In the long term, she hopes her work contributes to a legal system that is more accessible, responsive, and capable of addressing the structural injustices experienced by marginalized communities.

Practice Overview: Maitrayee’s work spans family disputes, housing, undertrial prisoner matters, and documentation support. She assists clients in understanding procedures, preparing applications, and responding to legal and administrative action, particularly in situations where displacement, detention, or sudden institutional intervention creates vulnerability.

Feminist Approach: Maitrayee’s practice is guided by a client-led and gender-sensitive approach. She begins by listening closely to women’s experiences and priorities before determining legal strategy, recognizing that legal needs are often shaped by loss of housing, family disruption, or interaction with coercive state systems. Her work reflects attentiveness to how women experience insecurity and institutional neglect, particularly in contexts where displacement or legal action results in the loss of essential household resources. She prioritizes respectful engagement, clarity, and emotional safety while supporting clients through unfamiliar and often intimidating legal processes.

Institutional Development: Maitrayee regularly engages with municipal bodies, police stations, courts, and prison authorities to support clients facing housing displacement, detention, or related harms. Her work includes approaching municipal authorities regarding loss of belongings and ration access, guiding residents through rehabilitation or resettlement processes, and assisting families in navigating police and prison-related procedures for undertrial prisoners. Through this institutional engagement, she addresses the procedural breakdowns that frequently prevent timely relief, particularly for women and families with limited access to legal information or resources.

Professional and Personal Journey: Maitrayee began her legal practice with a focus on juvenile justice matters in 2017 and later expanded into family and personal law. She was selected for the APPI Fellowship and worked at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences until 2022, where her exposure to research and field-based work informed her legal practice. Following this, she returned to independent practice. Her professional growth reflects learning across courtroom work, institutional engagement, and community-facing legal support. She continues to strengthen her practice through careful preparation, evolving legal knowledge, and sustained engagement with clients navigating complex legal systems.

Practice Overview: Srimoyee has been practicing at the High Court at Calcutta since 2015. With a decade of experience, her work focuses on constitutional and rights-based litigation, particularly in matters relating to custodial violence and death, victim compensation, and the rights of persons in custody. She also works extensively on LGBTQIA+ rights, engaging with questions of discrimination and equal opportunity. Alongside litigation, she is currently the Head of the Grievance Redressal Committee at Varta Trust and is a Certified POSH Trainer, contributing to institutional responses to harassment and abuse.

Feminist Approach: Srimoyee’s feminist legal practice is intersectional, inclusive, and grounded in social justice. She centers gender equity by advocating for legal outcomes that address structural discrimination and uplift marginalized voices, particularly those of women and LGBTQIA+ communities. Her approach recognizes law as a political and ethical space shaped by power, and she consciously works to challenge legal frameworks that normalize exclusion, violence, or invisibility. Survivor dignity, autonomy, and agency are central to her legal reasoning and practice.

Institutional Development: Srimoyee engages with institutional mechanisms to strengthen procedural safeguards and rights-based responses within the justice system. Her work focuses on improving the functioning of grievance redress processes, victim compensation frameworks, and institutional responses to harm, particularly in contexts involving vulnerability and marginalization. Through litigation, training, and committee-based roles, she contributes to the development of practices that center dignity and due process within formal systems.

Professional and Personal Journey: Srimoyee’s professional journey reflects a sustained commitment to transforming the justice system into one that is accountable, equitable, and grounded in dignity. Over the past decade, her work has consistently focused on challenging systemic violence and advocating for reforms that prevent harm rather than merely respond to it. She envisions law as a tool for long-term structural change—capable of reshaping institutions, protecting marginalized communities, and affirming the humanity of those most affected by state power.

Practice Overview: Madhu C. Mali practices before the City Civil and Sessions Court, Judicial Magistrate First Class, and District Court in Ahmedabad. Enrolled in 2018 and practicing since 2019, she has over six years of experience across criminal and civil matters, including domestic violence, family law, & cases under the Negotiable Instruments Act. After training under a senior advocate, she now practices independently, handling matters across Gujarat & neighbouring states, while also engaging closely with women facing social & economic vulnerability.

Feminist Approach: Madhu identifies as a feminist lawyer & views law as a tool to challenge patriarchal structures & systemic inequality. Her practice is informed by an intersectional approach that recognizes how gender intersects with caste, class, religion, & economic disadvantage. She prioritizes survivor-centric justice & actively engages with women from diverse backgrounds to understand legal barriers & build rights awareness at the community level.

Institutional Development: Madhu’s institutional engagement focuses on strengthening access to justice and economic security. She has begun working with women labourers and daily-wage workers to promote awareness around timely wages and fair working conditions and seeks to expand this work further. She also engages with land-related disputes, including cases involving land mafia activity, working with senior advocates to help restore land to rightful owners. Through documentation support, follow-up, and legal guidance, she works to translate formal legal protections into tangible outcomes.

Professional and Personal Journey: As a first-generation woman lawyer, Madhu’s early years of practice were marked by financial and professional uncertainty. Leaving her senior’s office without independent briefs, she built her practice through persistence, self-learning, and mentorship. Over time, she has gained recognition within her community and confidence in her professional identity. She views advocacy as a source of dignity as well as livelihood, and her long-term goal is to ensure timely and effective justice so that people retain faith in the legal system, while creating trusted spaces where women—especially young women—can seek legal support with confidence and privacy.

Practice Overview: Changneileu practices at the District and Sessions Court in Dimapur, Nagaland, and has been enrolled since 2020. Her practice is shaped by a close understanding of how patriarchal norms, lack of legal awareness, and institutional distance restrict women’s access to justice in tribal communities. She works primarily on family law and domestic violence matters, while also supporting women in navigating documentation, complaints, and welfare procedures, alongside grassroots legal awareness on basic constitutional rights.

Feminist Approach: Changneileu’s feminist legal practice is grounded in the conviction that women should never be expected to tolerate violence or discrimination because of their gender. She actively challenges beliefs that portray women as weaker or less deserving of rights, and centers patient listening, trust-building, and non-judgmental engagement in her work. While remaining attentive to cultural contexts, she firmly opposes practices that normalize inequality or violence against women.

Institutional Development: Changneileu engages with institutions to ensure that legal protections and welfare frameworks function effectively on the ground. She has worked to secure timely wages, safe working conditions, and maternity entitlements for women domestic workers, and assists clients in accessing welfare schemes and grievance redress mechanisms related to safety, education, and household concerns. Through this work, she seeks to strengthen institutional responsiveness and translate statutory obligations into real protections for women and marginalized communities.

Professional and Personal Journey: Changneileu’s journey as a lawyer has involved sustained efforts to challenge entrenched social norms and patriarchal mindsets. While this work is often demanding, she describes it as deeply meaningful and grounded in a strong sense of purpose. Her long-term vision is a society where women and girls are not treated as expendable, where their voices are heard without judgment, and where legal rights are experienced as lived realities rather than distant promises.

Practice Overview: Her legal work extends beyond courtroom disputes and focuses on advancing justice and equality through concrete legal interventions. She works on matters relating to employment, housing and property, and access to education and essential resources—areas that directly affect economic security, safety, and dignity for women and marginalised communities. She approaches each matter with attention to both legal provisions and the broader social context in which these rights are exercised.

Feminist Approach: Her feminist values shape her understanding of law as a tool for social change rather than a mere collection of rules. She consciously centres gender equality by ensuring that the voices of women, children, and marginalised communities are heard and respected throughout legal processes. She prioritises women’s dignity, equal opportunities, and protection from discrimination, while also challenging power structures that sustain patriarchy and inequality. For her, the law must empower those affected and help restore balance within society.

Institutional Development: Engaging with the state institutions is central to her practice. She focuses on ensuring timely wages, access to welfare schemes, effective grievance redress mechanisms, adherence to safety standards, and protection of housing and property rights. She views state engagement as essential to achieving social justice and gender equality, and works to ensure that institutional responsibilities are fulfilled fairly and in a timely manner. 

Professional and Personal Journey: Her personal journey has shaped her sensitivity, patience, and resilience. Exposure to social and economic inequality strengthened her commitment to justice and equality. Over time, this has informed her belief that law should function as a force that empowers and liberates people—ensuring that women experience security, dignity, and equal opportunity, and that the State acts with integrity.

Practice Overview: Bhubaneswari’s practice focuses on matters relating to domestic violence, family law, and property-related concerns, alongside broader issues affecting women and children. She also engages with property- and land-related concerns in family contexts. She approaches legal practice as a public responsibility grounded in ethical conduct rather than personal gain, with close attention to the procedural challenges clients face when seeking relief.

Feminist Approach: Bhubaneswari’s feminist legal approach is grounded in careful listening, respect, and non-judgmental engagement. She is attentive to how language, behaviour, and courtroom conduct affect clients’ dignity, particularly for women and transgender persons navigating hostile or unfamiliar legal spaces. Challenging the social normalisation of domestic violence is central to her work, and she views legal intervention as a means to disrupt this acceptance and assert dignity and safety.

Institutional Development: Her engagement with institutions is shaped by a commitment to strengthening legal frameworks and protections. While she views existing statutes as powerful tools for feminist legal practice, she also recognises their limitations in responding to evolving social realities. She recognises statutory protections as important tools, while also identifying gaps in how current laws respond to changing social realities—such as the limited inclusion of transgender persons within POSH-related protections and ongoing concerns around property-related exclusions affecting women, including Muslim women. These reflections inform her evolving areas of focus.

Professional and Personal Journey: Bhubaneswari’s professional journey reflects a strong commitment to disciplined and reflective legal practice. She values intensive reading, detailed note-keeping, and long-term documentation as foundations of effective lawyering. For her, sustained preparation transforms legal work from a reactive task into a meaningful and purposeful practice. Over time, she hopes to contribute to safer and more responsive legal spaces for survivors of domestic violence, while also seeking accountability from offenders through consistent legal intervention.

Practice Overview

Amrita Mohanty practices before the District Court, Cuttack, the District and State Consumer Commissions, and the Orissa High Court. Enrolled in 2022, her work blends courtroom representation with client counselling, with a focus on practical remedies, timely filings, and ensuring that clients clearly understand each procedural step involved in their cases.

Feminist Approach: Amrita’s practice integrates feminist values, centering gender equity in every case. She works to strengthen inclusive legal frameworks that address systemic barriers disadvantaging women and marginalized groups. Her feminist approach uses law as a tool for empowerment, advancing equitable outcomes. She envisions justice as transformative, creating institutional and community spaces where women and marginalized populations participate as equal stakeholders in decision-making and in accessing meaningful legal protection.

Institutional development: She strengthens institutional frameworks to ensure the timely and consistent delivery of wages, welfare entitlements, and grievance redress for marginalized groups. Her work advances property and housing security as foundational to livelihood, identity, and dignity, with a focus on equitable access for women and marginalized communities. By addressing procedural and systemic barriers, she supports stronger institutional delivery of rights and protections that enable long-term economic security.

Professional and Personal Journey: Amrita’s independent journey has strengthened her resolve to use law as a tool for institutional transformation. As her practice evolves, she is learning to take independent positions in her work—an approach reflected in her steady, preparation-driven style. Over the long term, she seeks to contribute to legal frameworks that dismantle structural inequalities and build systems where justice is accessible and inclusive, and where women and marginalized groups can exercise full agency and dignity.