Pickleball enthusiast Shubham Malhotra is a lawyer by profession in Delhi, India, but he doesn’t practice law.

Malhotra is the founder of LawStrings Management, a business development consultancy that helps law firms across the globe enhance their visibility and attract new clients by assisting with a variety of services, including branding, public relations, social media management, and website and graphic design.

In other words, Malhotra is a creative thinker with a penchant for innovation.

That's why he was the perfect candidate to found the recently announced LawStrings Pickleball Premier League - Lawyer’s Edition, a franchise-based pickleball league specifically for legal professionals based in the world's most populous country.

"I was introduced to pickleball last year, and I've been playing ever since. I took part in a few competitions as well, so I was inclined towards starting something where I can gather lawyers together in a setting that isn't like a traditional conference with speakers in a conference room," explained Malhotra. "Sports is one of those things that I believed would be very good for lawyers in terms of networking, especially pickleball. People of all ages are playing it, so I thought we should try it with the legal industry."

The initiative received the full support of a key official, Sacchin Puri, Senior Advocate and Vice President of the Delhi High Court Bar Association, so Malhotra was eager to pursue the initiative and ultimately make his vision a reality.

Eight teams were created featuring a mix of seasoned attorneys and rising legal professionals who will represent squads like the aptly named Amicus Aces, Pickle Pleaders, Supreme Strikers and Legal Pickle.

"All the franchise owners are very senior people and very reputable people in the legal industry in India, including a retired justice," confirmed Malhotra. "People showed their enthusiasm for the concept, which gave us confidence to move forward."

The inaugural tournament will be held on Saturday, May 24 and Sunday, May 25 at Rackonnect Exclusive Padel Pickle Park (REPPP) in South Delhi with matches in every discipline.

Malhotra is eagerly anticipating the event.

"My hope is to connect the maximum number of lawyers and introduce this game to them," he said. "This is also a platform for lawyers where they are getting to network with other lawyers from different areas. It will be a platform where a litigator is connecting with a corporate lawyer, for example, or a corporate lawyer is connecting with an in-house lawyer. We are also planning this with the hope that lawyers are gaining a platform to network with each other and also know each other apart from the professional relationship which they already have. I want to introduce a new way of networking to the legal industry."

It sounds like a winning formula.

And it's another sign that pickleball is reaching new heights in the region, too.

"This is just the first step we are taking. The idea is to promote the game internally. We want to make pickleball very big for a very specific niche of people," concluded Malhotra. "We are also promoting physical health in the legal community. Lawyers have a lifestyle where they do not have much time on their hands, so pickleball could work since it does not require big teams and hours of play. This is one of the things that I also want to introduce to the legal fraternity, starting with Delhi, and then the plan is to grow the league Pan India and even to a few other countries."

Click here to visit the LawStrings Pickleball Premier League - Lawyer’s Edition website.