Leading lawyer

Eminent corporate counsel Zia Mody of CZB and Partners, Bombay was honored with the Best Knowledge Manager Award at the first Financial Express — Electrolux Awards for Women in Business at The Oberoi on February 19, 2004 in the presence of a glittering gathering of corporate "India shining.” Mody, who holds a Bachelor of Law degree from Cambridge, an LLM from Harvard and has work experience abroad, is renowned for her legal skills in commercial and company law, constitution law, indirect tax as well as international and domestic arbitrations.

Adviser to several Fortune 500 companies in matters of foreign investment into India, Mody has played pivotal roles in major corporate M&As (mergers and acquisitions). The Asia Pacific Legal 500 in its 2001/02 edition had described the firm of advocates and solicitors as "attracting respect disproportionate to its size” and voted Mody one of the leading corporate and M&A lawyers in India, who maintains "close referral relationships with several lawyers at UK Magic Circle and US heavyweight firms,” states her curriculum vitae. The 2002/3 edition of the World’s Leading Lawyers by Chambers and Partners rates Mody in their first rank of the leading individuals (corporate/M&A).

Having represented oil and gas MNCs (multinational companies) in their Indian operations and advised for power and telecommunication projects, etc, CZB and Partners were ranked among the leading firms in the infrastructure sector and Mody and Bahram Vakil as among the leading individuals in the infrastructure sector in the 2002/3 edition of Asia Pacific Legal 500. Mody has advised and structured offshore equity funds in Mauritius and guided venture capital companies, private equity and mutual funds and asset management companies.

Daughter of India’s attorney general Soli Sorabjee, 47-year-old Mody, Parsi by birth and professing the Baha’i faith, is a member of the SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) standing committee on mutual funds and a member of the capital market committee of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Lending her expertise for social and educational causes, Mody is a member of the Barli Development Institute for Rural Women, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, trustee of the New Era High School, Panchgani and the J. N. Petit Trust, Bombay, among her wide ranging activities.