The Great Legal Minds Show – Krishnava Dutt, Argus Partners

In this episode of The Great Legal Minds Show, host Aman sits down with Krishnava Dutt, Founder and Managing Partner of Argus Partners, for an unfiltered look at what it takes to build a top-tier Indian law firm from the ground up.

Krishnava traces his path from the Calcutta High Court and ICICI to launching Argus Partners in 2009, at a time when the legal industry was still dominated by a handful of large, established firms. He talks candidly about the instinct (and a little bit of nerve) it took to start his own practice, how Argus earned the trust of clients with major mandates in its very first year, and why he built the firm around three core values: integrity, quality, and respect.

The conversation also goes deep into Argus Academy, the firm’s in-house training platform built to develop both technical legal skills and the “soft” skills lawyers often aren’t taught, and into Krishnava’s grounded, experience-first view on AI in legal practice. He shares how tools like ChatGPT and Claude are already part of his own workflow, why “positive skepticism” is essential when using them, and why he believes human judgment shaped by years of navigating deals, risk, and client trust isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

The episode closes with a wider look at where M&A practice and commercial dealmaking are headed, and Krishnava’s vision for Argus Partners a decade from now.