Ritu Sethi's inspiring journey to success

Criminal lawyer, fitness instructor, motivational speaker and television chat show host. Award-winning polymath Ritu Sethi talks about her ‘learning curve’.

Ritu Sethi isn’t the only female managing and senior partner within the legal profession, but she is probably the first with a dual qualification in beauty therapy, her own television show and a photograph of soul legend Lionel Ritchie on her wall. But then, conformity isn’t her style.

‘I’ve had a rebellious streak throughout,’ she says, referring to her decision to break the family mould and study law instead of medicine. Her appearance, too, stands out against the austere environment of a typical law office, where papers and client files lie stacked on every available space. She breezes into reception wearing a striking, white pin-striped suit with vibrant red shirt and matching lipstick, framing a welcoming smile. ‘Hello, I’m Ritu,’ she says, without a hint of self-importance.

Since establishing The Sethi Partnership in Eastcote, north-west London, in 1994, the 44-year-old mother of two has grown the practice from two to 30 staff, expanded into a full-service operation that includes private immigration work, and picked up a string of awards along the way. Her latest gong came courtesy of the Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets/CBI First Women Awards 2008; she won the Business Services category for her personal and professional accomplishments. Fellow winners on the night, in June, included top fashion designer Nicole Farhi and Kelly Hoppen, the celebrity interior designer, who decorated the Beckhams’ Beverly Hills mansion.

‘I didn’t think I would win,’ Ritu confesses. ‘We were star-struck. Everyone was in their lovely black dresses and my business partner Shreeti Rajdev and I went in our saris, but it was a great evening.’

She stole the award from a number of nominated City solicitors for her work outside the law as well as within it. The former includes public speaking on topics such as empowering women in business, and a live television series which she presented on Sky last year titled Chai with Ritu, debating issues such as drink and drug addiction within the Asian community. ‘The other [nominees] had really given their all to the legal profession, but I’m not about living, breathing and sleeping law. I won for my all-round experience, for everything else I do, as well as being a criminal lawyer and running the practice.’

Climbing up the ladder

Undoubtedly, the story of her rise to success also impressed the judges. After studying law at Bristol University, she was made a salaried partner at a medium-sized firm the day after completing her training contract in 1990 and an equity partner just two years later. ‘I was in my mid-twenties and taking on these huge liabilities. We had 50 staff then and I didn’t realise what I was actually signing into…you just imagine that you’re a partner and that’s it, you’ve already made it. The learning curve was very quick very early on in my career.’

In fact, one of her fellow partners died suddenly, leaving the firm with mounting debts for which Ritu, as a partner, was jointly liable. She decided to start afresh with her own firm in 1994, but ‘the first three years of the Sethi Partnership were spent wrapping up the affairs of the previous practice and also paying off debts that I was jointly and severally liable for, so it was a tough time.’

The new firm initially consisted of Sethi and receptionist Anna Randall who, 14 years later, remains at the practice, now as a fee-earner and conveyancing executive. Ritu recalls how debt collectors with brown envelopes would walk past her office window on their way to reception to deliver written demands. Randall would ring through and ask what to do, ‘but in the early years I didn’t know what to do. I kept saying "send them back, send them back, I don’t know, I don’t know!" Then it was a question of, right, just bite the bullet, accept it and deal with it. So it really was a struggle’.

As well as the financial stress, Sethi was juggling the new practice with two children then aged just two and six months. ‘I felt like I had to be at the firm, especially doing crime, where you worked a rota for police station duties at the weekend and evenings. But finding nannies to work the hours that a criminal defence lawyer works, it was just unthinkable, and we went through nanny after nanny. It was a horrible time.’

She even had her car repossessed from outside the office, complete with babies’ bottles and prams in the back. ‘That was an experience!’ she muses. Indeed, it is her ability to be unfazed by problems that is her main strength, according to fellow partner Shreeti Rajdeev, a matrimonial specialist who has been at the Sethi Partnership almost since inception. She says: ‘Ritu is a very inspirational person to work with and to be heading the firm. Over the years there have been times of difficulty and obstacles, but she doesn’t see anything as a setback, she sees it as a challenge. She’s very positive and forward-thinking and I’ve learnt a lot from working with her.’

It is this positive attitude, and an almost courageous approach to business, that forms the basis of her public speaking. In June she spoke at the Business Link in London (BLIL) conference for 300 female entrepreneurs about growing and developing businesses. BLIL is a business support organisation with 24-hour web and telephone support for female-owned enterprises.

Crime doesn’t pay

Although she handles commercial property work, criminal law has been her main focus since qualifying, and she has been a duty solicitor at Harrow, Ealing and Uxbridge police stations and Uxbridge and Harrow magistrates’ courts for 18 years. When asked about memorable cases, she recalls that of a male domestic worker who suffered years of physical, mental and sexual abuse at the hands of his employer and one day murdered the employer and dismembered her body. An arm was found in a rubbish heap after a passer-by thought it was a mannequin and tried to remove a ring from the hand. The head was found elsewhere. The case was eventually taken to trial by another firm, and a plea of manslaughter was accepted, a result Sethi views a best-possible, as ‘it was a victory for him because he managed to get his story out, that he was not a murderer’.

As a criminal lawyer, she is often called upon by the media for comment, most recently featuring on BBC London Radio for her views on knife crime. She is adamant that there is no fresh epidemic on the streets, but rather, the media is seizing on every crime because it is a hot topic. Having been on the frontline of street crime for 18 years in her professional capacity, she says that knife- and property-related violent offences have always been prevalent in the areas she has worked. ‘It’s not a current spate; it’s an ongoing issue that the government has now woken up to and is maybe using as a political topic to divert attention from other things.’

She also blames knife crime on the drugs culture, and hints that the British authorities are turning a blind eye to dealing with the arrival of drugs from abroad. With her firm based close to Heathrow Airport, she has vast experience of drug trafficking offences and reveals: ‘We’ve been told by our clients that, on any flight arriving from certain countries, there are at least 10 drug couriers on the flight all commissioned by one person. That person will tip off Customs & Excise about one courier so the other nine walk through. Customs must be aware of this, because defence lawyers are.’

And that’s something else that is impressive about Sethi. She is not afraid to express her opinions and be quoted. ‘Is this turning into an anti-government rant?’ she asks part-way through the interview, reapplying her lipstick as if to say, ‘well if it is, I want to look authoritative’.

Like most senior criminal defence lawyers, she lambasts the Legal Services Commission for failing to increase legal aid rates since 2000 and is scaling down her successful crime practice as a result. ‘It’s just not worth a senior partner doing criminal legal aid work when you’ve got junior staff who are charging at least three times that rate on a private basis,’ she protests. ‘It doesn’t even pay to have a junior member of staff doing legal aid at £25 an hour, it is a ridiculous rate.’

Mention the Legal Services Act and she is equally opinionated. ‘I am concerned about it,’ she admits, leaning forward in her chair as if to emphasise the point, ‘because who’s right is it to tell us what we should be doing as law firms? Who actually knows what it takes to run a firm, the day-to-day running, having the SRA regulations, having the Code of Conduct regulations, trying to keep your clients happy, trying to keep the client and office accounts in order? It is a huge responsibility, and you only know that responsibility if you are in it, if you’re responsible for it.’

But she is not averse to change. On the contrary, staying one step ahead of the competition is something that has kept the firm going over the years, she says. Other keys to a successful practice, she reveals, are to allow each team to run its department as if it were running its own business, and to treat everyone at your firm with respect. ‘I’ve never referred to anyone as employees; they are all my colleagues,’ she says.

Would she consider joining the bench? ‘Maybe. But I think there is a lot of lip service, saying we want more Asians, we want more women. But at the end of the day, I think it’s still very much an old boys’ network and it will take another generation to really start shifting that mindset.’

Media magnet

Asked how she juggles her hectic professional life (she is also a YMCA-qualified fitness instructor), she doesn’t hesitate in crediting her ‘fantastic, really amazing team’ that allows her the freedom not to be in the office all the time. As well as partner Shreeti Rajdev, her ‘A-Team’ includes head of wills and probate Malcolm Turner, who has 40 years’ post-qualified experience and practice manager Debbie Hunter, ‘without whom this practice would be quite different’.

She also attributes much of her success to husband Sudhiri, a director of an IT company whom she met at university and ‘has been a pillar of support without [whom] I would have struggled’. Her two children are never afraid to say what they think and inspire her, she says; 17-year-old son Avinash and 14-year-old daughter Nikhita are ‘both bright sparks’ but neither of them want to follow her into a legal career.

But it is her parents who have had the greatest impact on her determination and work ethos, which is encapsulated in the dictum: ‘When the dream is big enough, the odds don’t matter.’ Both teachers, they moved the family from Kenya to Ilford, East London when Ritu was eight, and worked hard to open the door for her and three siblings to go to university and enter the professions, preferably medicine. Recalling her childhood she says: ‘It was all about education, you didn’t have any other hobbies; it wasn’t about going out to learn to dance or play the piano, for example, it was all about education.’ She compares her upbringing to that of her own children, who are free to follow whatever path they choose.

Indeed, her family typifies what she refers to as the British-Asian story: ‘When our parents’ generation came to this country they ran three shops and were very industrious, while the next generation was very much into the professions and becoming doctors, dentists and lawyers. And now the third generation will have a blank canvas to do whatever they want, thanks to our ancestors paying the price. It’s quite an exciting story when there is a migration of any community to a new country.’

It is this story that formed the basis of her chat show, Chai with Ritu, which also tackled domestic violence, youth culture and the role of Asians in the mainstream music industry. Going forward, she has reached the point in her career where further television work is where she has her sights set. ‘I’d like to do a mainstream programme focusing on positive issues, none of this negative culture that is developing with the media. That is another pet hate of mine, that the power of the media is so great and yet they use it on such negative issues, airtime and print coverage. So much inch space is wasted on talking about negativity. We really need a fresh programme that will inspire people to go beyond what they feel they can achieve.’

Oprah Winfrey, step aside.