Legal Week Intelligence, in association with Fulcrum GT, recently published the first edition of its Top 20 Legal IT Innovators report, which profiles the law firm leaders, in-house lawyers and tech pioneers driving change in the legal profession.

Ranajoy Basu is a man on a mission: to create a positive social impact around the world and particularly in emerging markets including India, his country of birth, using the law as an instrument of innovation. Basu is a partner in structured finance at Reed Smith in London and also heads the firm's social impact finance group. Prior to joining Reed Smith, he worked at Allen & Overy and Berwin Leighton Paisner.

"The idea of social impact financing came through a transaction, BOLD (Blueorchard Loans for Development)," he says. "It was innovative, the first of its kind, and at the time in 2007, it went on to win several awards for Deal of the Year, because it was the first rated securitisation of microfinance transactions."

Through this experience, Basu realised that he could apply his legal expertise from capital markets and structured finance transactions in creating social impact. "There is a great need for unlocking private capital towards funding social impact projects in areas of the world where such funding is vital," he explains.

Before joining Reed Smith in 2012, he became involved in several transactions similar to BOLD. Once at the firm, and with support from senior management, he established the Social Impact Finance Group across the firm's many offices, where a team of lawyers across a number of practice areas advise on numerous social impact projects, including the recent Educate Girls Project, which is a landmark transaction on cross-border impact funding in the education sector.

Up until that point, social impact bonds had always been structured on a domestic basis. The challenge was to get funding across jurisdictions. Basu was driven by the need "to structure something innovative, which targeted the education needs of more than 20,000 girls in remote parts of India, such as Rajasthan".

Advising on the structuring, documentation, regulation and tax were key. In a project that started at the end of 2013 and completed 18 months later, "the key innovative element", explains Basu, "was ensuring that the social impact linked back to the payment that the investors get". That repayment would be contingent on specified outcomes being achieved.

Over the last few years, social impact finance has evolved into a mainstream practice area for us

There were three elements that were key in relation to this innovative transaction: (i) the structuring of the payment mechanics; (ii) the parameters of success or the success metrics that would be applied to evaluate the level of positive impact achieved by the projects; and (iii) the level of information that would be available in India for the impact evaluators to be able to measure the outcome. It was also critical that all of these aspects were clearly documented under a robust legal framework. Through an exhaustive, complex and creative process, the first cross-border development impact bond succeeded, with the investment being raised from UBS Optimus Foundation.

"It is encouraging to see that the first-year results of the project have been positive and also that the structural framework developed by Instiglio, UBS Optimus and CIFF, is holding up in its application on the ground," says Basu.

"In terms of innovation, as a lawyer, the most exciting aspect and the challenge is to be able to deliver a relatively simple solution to our clients who are looking at developing a financing framework, where the social impact is closely linked to every aspect of the transaction. It is hoped that the Educate Girls Project will be the first of many such transactions delivering positive change for the education of children."

In rethinking traditional models of social impact, thanks to Basu, Reed Smith is continuing to innovate. The firm now has almost 150 people in finance, tax, regulatory and corporate across its office network as part of the Social Impact Finance Group.

"Over the last few years, our social impact finance group has evolved into a mainstream practice area for us, which is what we wanted to build right from the beginning. The social impact finance market is growing rapidly and we are very excited to be part of these innovative transactions," he says.