Dr. Ankita Sharma is an accomplished academician, researcher, and legal professional with expertise in Corporate Law, International Law, Environmental Law, and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). She is an Associate Professor at the School of Law, GD Goenka University, Haryana, where she serves as the Program Chair for B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) and B.Com. LL.B. (Hons.) and heads the Centre for Corporate Law, Policy Research and Governance. She is also a certified Arbitrator and POSH Trainer.
An alumna of Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar, Dr. Sharma holds a Doctorate in Corporate-Environmental Law and a Master’s degree in Corporate Law. With over 13 years of experience in academia, research, and industry, she has taught and worked extensively in Corporate Laws, Environmental Laws, Public International Law, International Trade Law, and ADR mechanisms.
A prolific researcher and educator, Dr. Sharma has presented papers at numerous national and international conferences and seminars and has contributed books, research papers, and book chapters to reputed publications, including Scopus, Web of Science, and ABDC-indexed journals. She has also been actively involved in organising and adjudicating national and international conferences, moot courts, client counselling competitions, and arbitration moot competitions, combining research-oriented teaching with strong experiential learning and academic leadership.
Interview: Dr. Ankita Sharma
Legal Bites: Across your work in corporate law, environmental responsibility, international law, and dispute resolution, a clear interdisciplinary thread emerges. How has that influenced your approach to research and teaching?
Dr. Ankita Sharma: The interdisciplinary nature of law has significantly shaped the way I approach both research and teaching. My work across corporate law, environmental responsibility, international law and dispute resolution has reinforced the understanding that contemporary legal issues rarely exist within a single discipline. They often involve a combination of regulatory, economic, technological and governance considerations.
This perspective reflects in my research as well as classroom engagement, where I try to connect legal principles with contemporary developments such as sustainability, climate change, technology, AI and international commerce. The objective is to move beyond a purely doctrinal approach and encourage students to analyse law in its wider institutional and practical context.
Legal Bites: As Head of the Centre for Corporate Law, Policy Research and Governance at GD Goenka University, you work closely with academics, practitioners, and students. From that experience, what helps turn a research centre into a space for sustained scholarship rather than a series of isolated events and publications?
Dr. Ankita Sharma: A research centre becomes a sustained academic space when it develops a continuing intellectual agenda rather than functioning only through individual events. At the Centre for Corporate Law, Policy Research and Governance, the emphasis is therefore on creating meaningful engagement among academics, practitioners and students, where discussions, research projects and collaborations build upon one another and contribute to a broader research ecosystem.
Equally important is creating opportunities for students and faculty to participate in research beyond conventional academic activities. Conferences, expert interactions and publications are most valuable when they lead to further inquiry, collaborative research and policy-oriented engagement. In this way, the Centre can evolve from an event-based platform into a space that encourages sustained scholarship and meaningful contribution to contemporary legal and governance debates.
Legal Bites: As a certified Arbitrator, you have seen dispute resolution from both an academic and professional perspective. What do young lawyers often underestimate about building credibility in arbitration beyond moots, courses, and technical knowledge?
Dr. Ankita Sharma: Arbitration requires much more than knowing the law or collecting certifications. Young lawyers often underestimate the importance of professional credibility, judgement and consistency, how they communicate, handle responsibility, engage with colleagues and demonstrate reliability over time. These qualities gradually shape how they are perceived by clients, counsel and arbitral institutions.
Equally important is developing the ability to think strategically rather than merely technically. Understanding the commercial context of a dispute, being attentive to procedure, maintaining professional ethics and communicating a position clearly can be as important as knowing the substantive law.
Moots and courses provide a foundation; credibility is built through the quality of one’s work and professional conduct in real practice.
Legal Bites: You are also a POSH trainer, which places you at the point where compliance, workplace culture, and institutional behaviour meet. What should serious POSH training actually change within an organisation if it is to go beyond a box-ticking exercise?
Dr. Ankita Sharma: POSH training should ultimately create a culture of awareness, accountability and respect, rather than simply establish procedural compliance. Employees should understand what constitutes inappropriate behaviour, the standards of workplace conduct expected from them, and the mechanisms available to raise concerns safely and without fear of retaliation.
The responsibility cannot rest only with the Internal Committee. Institutional leadership and everyday workplace behaviour must reflect the principles of the POSH framework. Effective training should therefore encourage responsible reporting, sensitive handling of complaints, confidentiality, and greater awareness among managers and employees.
The real measure of success is a workplace where prevention becomes part of organisational culture, rather than an annual compliance exercise.
Legal Bites: You have judged several arbitration, mediation, and negotiation competitions. What do these competitions teach students about handling disputes that advocacy skills alone cannot?
Dr. Ankita Sharma: These competitions teach students that dispute resolution is not simply about presenting the strongest legal argument; it is also about listening, reading the room, and understanding the interests underlying a dispute. Negotiation and mediation, in particular, require patience, empathy and the ability to identify solutions that may not emerge from a purely adversarial approach.
They also develop an important sense of judgement and adaptability. A well-prepared advocate must know when to press an argument, when to compromise, and when to reconsider a strategy based on the response of the other side. These are practical skills that are difficult to acquire from textbooks alone and become increasingly valuable in professional dispute resolution.
Legal Bites: Your article on US policy towards Russia and Ukraine explored how changes in leadership can unsettle long-standing alliances. What gives international commitments the strength to endure beyond the government that negotiated them?
Dr. Ankita Sharma: International commitments endure beyond individual governments only when they are supported by strong institutions, consistent state practice and mutual strategic interests. The Russia-Ukraine conflict illustrates how changes in leadership and policy priorities can test even long-standing alliances and security commitments.
Ultimately, the credibility of an international commitment depends not merely on the government that makes it, but on the willingness of states to sustain it when circumstances change.
The conflict also demonstrates that international law and diplomacy cannot operate independently of political will. Alliances are strengthened when commitments are embedded in broader institutional frameworks and supported by sustained cooperation among states. Where commitments remain heavily dependent on changing political calculations, their continuity becomes far more vulnerable to shifts in leadership and national priorities.
Legal Bites: Through your work with the Centre for Corporate Law at the GD Goenka University, editorial responsibilities, and conference leadership, you have been closely involved in institution-building. In an academic environment increasingly driven by publication counts and metrics, what should carry greater weight: originality, method, consistency, or public value?
Dr. Ankita Sharma: I would see these not as competing priorities, but as different dimensions of meaningful scholarship. Originality gives research its intellectual contribution; methodological rigour gives it credibility; consistency gives scholarship continuity; and public value gives it relevance beyond academia.
In an era where quantitative metrics increasingly influence academic assessment, it is important that these indicators remain measures of scholarship rather than substitutes for scholarly substance.
Ultimately, the value of research lies in its capacity to generate new ways of understanding a problem and to influence legal, institutional or policy thinking. A publication may add to a metric, but scholarship acquires significance when it advances knowledge, withstands critical inquiry, and remains relevant to the questions confronting society and institutions.
Legal Bites: A growing part of legal learning now takes place beyond the classroom through platforms such as Legal Bites. What role can well-edited digital resources play in strengthening students’ research habits, legal reasoning, and engagement with current developments?
Dr. Ankita Sharma: Well-edited digital resources can bridge the gap between legal doctrine and the rapidly evolving realities to which law must respond. Platforms such as Legal Bites expose students to contemporary judgments, legislative developments, commentaries and emerging legal debates, encouraging them to look beyond textbooks and develop the habit of engaging with law as a constantly evolving discipline.
More importantly, when students learn to question, analyse and critically engage with curated legal content, digital resources can strengthen research and legal reasoning rather than merely provide information.
The value lies not in replacing conventional scholarship, but in creating a more dynamic research ecosystem where students learn to connect established principles with current developments and emerging areas of law.
Legal Bites: Looking ahead, which areas of law do you think students and young lawyers should start paying more attention to, and how can they prepare for those fields in a meaningful way?
Dr. Ankita Sharma: I believe students should increasingly look at areas where law intersects with technology, sustainability, corporate governance and global commerce, particularly AI and emerging technologies, data privacy, environmental and climate law, International arbitration, and evolving forms of digital commerce.
These fields are developing rapidly and require lawyers to understand not only legal doctrine but also the economic, technological and regulatory contexts in which it operates.
Preparation, therefore, should go beyond choosing a specialisation. Young lawyers should develop strong foundational legal reasoning, interdisciplinary awareness and the ability to engage critically with emerging developments.
Reading judgments and policy documents, undertaking focused research, participating in practical exercises, and learning to understand the underlying technology or commercial context can help them build expertise that remains relevant as these fields evolve.
Legal Bites: Thank you so much!
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