Crawford & Acharya co-founders Angela Crawford, left, and Lila Acharya, right.

Former DLA Piper Miami litigation chair Angela Crawford and Rolls-Royce in-house counsel Lila Acharya have formed the firm Crawford & Acharya, a corporate compliance boutique based out of Boston and Miami.

Crawford, who is based in Miami, spent 12 years at DLA Piper, rising to the head of the firm's Miami litigation practice in 2017. Before that, she spent a year as an Assistant U.S. attorney in Illinois and five years as a litigator at Kirkland & Ellis.

Acharya, based in Boston and licensed in the U.K., most recently worked for Rolls-Royce, where she helped remediate the company's compliance protocol after it settled a bribery case for £671 million ($870.51 million) in early 2017. Before that, she worked for Bank of America, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Pfizer and Ropes & Gray. She also spent more than four years as a prosecutor in Massachusetts.

The pair said that the boutique model in their line of work leads to a closer, more flexible relationship with clients. They represent large and mid-size companies in heavy-regulated markets, mostly in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries both in the U.S. and the U.K., they said.

The duo said as both in-house and outside counsel, they have conducted a combined 150 investigations, trainings and compliance reviews in more than 30 countries around the world.

"When our clients hire us they're actually getting us. They get two people who are experienced practitioners that have the in-house view and the seasoned view Angela has from DLA," Acharya said.

Both Acharya and Crawford said they offer more flexibility than their Big Law competitors, working closely with clients to craft alternative fee arrangements so that their corporate clients know exactly what to expect out of their legal spend. While such fee arrangements may be more difficult in transactional work or litigation, the nature of compliance matters makes them an easy fit, they said.

"When we wanted to create Crawford & Acharya, we wanted to do it in a way to have flexibility in our fee structure, anything from having a monthly retainer to hourly and capped fees," Crawford said.

"If somebody is engaging you to do a risk assessment or revise and draft a set of procedures for them, it's pretty straightforward in terms of pricing," Acharya added.

They also see the fact that they are both women of color as a strength, especially as corporate clients continue prioritizing diverse teams to the point of pulling legal spend from nondiverse law firms.

"We're immensely proud of being a women-of-color firm," Crawford said. "We spend a lot of time on the ground interacting with people who are different from us ethnically and culturally, whether we're in the Czech Republic, Dubai or the Philippines. Multifaceted diversity is critically important in this space."

The two met four years ago in Dubai when they worked on an investigation together. Acharya was working in-house at Pfizer and Crawford was working as outside counsel at DLA. They immediately hit it off and have stayed in touch ever since, although the two have never worked together in the same city.

And the firm is looking to grow immediately, given the "discussions" and reactions the founders have gotten from clients. Growth could mean adding associates, experienced partners or contract lawyers. Regardless, Crawford is wary of growing past the boutique size they see as an advantage.

"We really do want to grow our firm," Crawford said, "but grow it in a way to maintain our boutique size."

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