Sheela Murthy

Sheela Murthy (born 12 October 1961) is an Indian-American lawyer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, perhaps best known as founder and president of Murthy Law Firm, based in Owings Mills, Maryland.

A native of India, Murthy and her husband, photographer and media specialist Vasant Nayak, established the MurthyNayak Foundation to channel their philanthropic contributions to nonprofits that serve the needs of women, children, and immigrants, particularly in education and healthcare. Murthy has been recognized for her philanthropic work. She serves on the boards of several nonprofits in the Baltimore–Washington area and elsewhere in the northeastern United States. She is a frequent speaker on immigration law, and on entrepreneurship and motivation, leadership, and women's issues.

Early life Murthy was born in Baroda (now known as Vadodara), India, in 1961, the second of three daughters. Her father, HMS (Srinivas) Murthy, was an officer in the Indian Defense Forces. she now credits her father's constant reminders about her responsibility to help the less fortunate for sparking her interest in law, social justice, and philanthropy.

Education Murthy was admitted to Stella Maris College in Chennai, She graduated in 1982. Murthy graduated from law school in 1985 at the top of her class of 1,500 students.

While in New York for the moot court competition, Murthy decided to apply for the Master of Laws (LLM) program at Harvard Law School. She went on to graduate from Harvard's LLM program in 1987. At the same time, Murthy was developing expertise in immigration law, forced to learn it as she went through the protracted bureaucratic process—four years, in her case—to secure green cards for herself and her husband. Murthy helped her employer to set up an immigration law practice, and did the same when she moved to another firm in 1992, where she began in earnest to build up an immigration law practice of her own.

Murthy attributes her interest in immigration law, in part, to the difficulties she faced during her own immigration process. Murthy found the process time-consuming, expensive, and discouraging. As she explained in a 2009 interview, "my [immigration] lawyer never really communicated with me…except the one instance when he had to tell me he was hiking his fee! I thought that if a lawyer treats a fellow-lawyer like this, I dread to think how he'll treat others. I said I bet I can make an impact if I get in." Eventually she moved to a tiny office in Owings Mills, Maryland that included a photocopier and receptionist that she shared with several other businesses.

The Murthy.com website was launched by Murthy's husband, Vasant Nayak, who, at the time, ran the new graduate program in digital arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. As Murthy explained, "He kept following me around, saying, 'It's the wave of the future! I'll do the work!' And finally I thought, fine, if it's free, I guess I can live with it. I've got nothing to lose."

Murthy's firm grew quickly, in part because of her early adoption of using the Internet for educational and outreach efforts. Murthy established a significant presence on the web, sharing news and information about the immigration process, and building her name and reputation in the process.

Beyond her online presence, Murthy further raised her stature by writing about immigration law and serving frequently as a commentator for professional publications and seminars. and has taken several leadership roles in that organization over the years.

She admits that, when she first launched her firm, she struggled with employee retention because she was too demanding, expecting her employees to work fourteen-to-fifteen hour days every day of the week. But, as time went on, she recognized that this was unreasonable, and that her employees "...needed to have a healthy work life balance and had all the right to go back to their kids and families."

By 2005, The Law Office of Sheela Murthy had expanded to the point that the firm changed its doing business as name to the Murthy Law Firm. As of 2023, the firm has about 100 employees at its headquarters office in Owings Mills, Maryland, and another 30 at its affiliate, Murthy Immigration Services Private Limited (MISPL), headquartered in Chennai and with satellite offices in Hyderabad and Mumbai, India. According to Chambers Global, an international law-firm rating agency, the firm is now one of the world's leading U.S. immigration law firms. Education, health care, nutrition, and the rights of women and children are among the main focal points of these efforts. Girl Scouts of Central Maryland, Stevenson University, and the Harvard Law School Alumni Board of Visitors, among others. She also served on the boards of United Way International and the United Way of Central Maryland, which named her the 2009 Philanthropist of the Year. In December 2017, Murthy was named the president of the Washington, D.C. chapter (representing the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia) of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).

Awards and honors The 2013 edition of Corporate Immigration recognized Murthy as one of the world's top corporate immigration attorneys. Among her other honors, she was named to the 2011 Top 50 Most Influential Marylanders and the Maryland Top 100 Women's Circle of Excellence by The Daily Record, a Maryland Business publication. Murthy's firm was among the 2012 Top 100 Minority Business Enterprises, and Murthy received the 2010 Business Philanthropy Award from the Baltimore Business Journal. She also received the 2010 Small Business of the Year Award from the Maryland Chamber of Commerce. In 2012, The Daily Record recognized Murthy as one of "Maryland's Most Admired CEOs," and the Maryland Entrepreneur Quarterly named her Business Entrepreneur of the Year.

In 2012, The Children's Guild, a nonprofit school for children with special needs, presented Murthy with the Sadie Award for her philanthropy and humanitarianism. She has been recognized as among the Best Lawyers in America (c) as voted by her peers over the years. In 2023, Murthy was inducted into the MD Business and Civic Hall of Fame by the Baltimore Sun for her lifetime contributions to the law, business, philanthropy and the community. In the same year, 2023, the MD Chamber of Commerce inducted Murthy into its Hall of Fame.