Legal Innovator Nitish Upadhyaya Joins R&G Insights Lab as Director of Behavioral Insights

Ropes & Gray today announces the appointment of Nitish Upadhyaya, as Director of Behavioral Insights within the firm’s fast-growing R&G Insights Lab, the legal industry’s first—and only— analytics and behavioural science consulting practice. 

Nitish, who will be based in the firm’s London office, is a trained behavioral scientist, with an MSc in Behavioral Science from the London School of Economics. He joins R&G Insights Lab from another global law firm, where he led on innovation, helping develop new ways of thinking to solve client challenges. He started his career as a litigation lawyer advising clients on complex financial services cases in the English Commercial Court and multi-jurisdictional regulatory investigations spanning a range of regulators and supervisory bodies.  Nitish brings to this role academic rigour, knowledge of applied behavioral science frameworks and appreciation of the complexities of applying behavioral insights across a range of legal contexts.  

Zach Coseglia, co-founder and leader of the Lab, said: “Nitish’s unique background as both a legal innovator and behavioral scientist will rapidly accelerate the Lab’s ability to deliver our clients creative, human-centred solutions.” He added: “Clients increasingly demand that we join them in the hunt for better ways, particularly when addressing areas of risk that involve human behavior and organizational culture.  Nitish’s experience and training as a lawyer and behavioral scientist—and his previous work as a leader in the space of user-centric design—is what’s needed to deliver.  We could not be more pleased to welcome him to our team.” 

Amanda Raad, a Ropes & Gray partner, co-founder of R&G Insights Lab, and co-leader of Ropes & Gray’s global anti-corruption and international risk practice, said: “We are thrilled that Nitish has joined our fast-growing team.  He will play a critical role in continuing to grow the Lab’s behavioral science practice in areas like compliance, ethics and risk; diversity, equity and inclusion; and organizational culture. He’ll also be a leader in ‘productizing’ our offerings and driving innovation within the Lab – as well as across the firm.” 

Upon joining, Nitish said: “I am so excited to be working with a team of forward-thinking experts who are changing the face of the legal industry.  Human behavior undoubtedly shapes the outcomes and effects in the legal world and has long been one of the missing pieces in how we approach a range of legal issues from compliance to equality.  By integrating techniques and methodologies from intersecting disciplines, including behavioral science, user-centred design and data science, we have a real opportunity to do things differently, working with stakeholders and clients to design sustainable solutions to issues that have long been thought to be intractable.” 

R&G Insights Lab is a full-service legal consulting group and remains the legal industry’s first – and only – analytics and behavioral science offering, uniting Ropes & Gray’s world-class legal talent with a multi-disciplinary team of creative business-minded consultants and data and behavioral scientists. 

Since it launched in 2020, the team has grown rapidly in response to client demand, with a range of hires including Hui Chen, an internationally renowned expert in business ethics and compliance, with more than three decades of experience as a consultant, lawyer, academic and thought leader; cultural psychologist Dr Caitlin Handron, Ph.D., who joined in 2021 as Senior Consultant and Behavioral Scientist; and Megan Zwiebel a lawyer, writer and compliance expert who joined the Lab as Director of Operations & Delivery in June.