A Conversation With Alum Chini Reddy, Assistant General Counsel at TRM Labs
As a child moving around across continents and cultures, Chini Reddy always had an instinctual love of learning. She credits her inquisitive nature with leading her to the field of law. “There are laws related to everything. You can use it as a lens to understand so many different parts of our world and our society.”
Reddy was recently promoted to Assistant General Counsel at TRM Labs in 2025, having initially joined as Senior Legal Counsel in 2022. TRM, a Series B startup and blockchain intelligence company serving the public and private sectors, aims to create a safer financial system for billions of people worldwide. In her current role, Reddy assists law enforcement, financial regulators, financial institutions, virtual asset service providers, and other global organizations to prevent the illicit use of cryptocurrency.
She is particularly gratified by how her work might facilitate TRM’s objectives around the world. “There are places where I know TRM is making a huge impact, which is very important to me. Getting to work at a company that is very mission-driven fills me with purpose.”
In reminiscing about her career, Reddy says she has always felt an affinity with Sidley. “I really love that Sidley has been with me since the beginning of my career, and it’s been there ever since — even after I left the firm.” As a summer associate in 2014, while attending Washington University in St. Louis, Reddy knew from her first interview that Sidley would be the right fit. She says that beyond being a firm of incredibly knowledgeable, professional, and approachable lawyers, she appreciated the broad swath of practice areas she could explore.
In the summer of 2015, Reddy worked as a Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) fellow at the ACLU, where she gained firsthand legal experience working on litigation matters. After joining the firm that same year as an associate in the Global Finance group in the Chicago office, she represented clients across different transactions spanning from traditional lending for both borrowers and lenders to securitizations, private equity, and M&A.
Having worked on such a wide variety of complex matters, Reddy found the confidence she needed to tackle the thornier situations that have since come her way. “I’m battle tested. I did high-pressure, fast-thinking, extreme-precision work for a long time. I’ve gotten that training under my belt from Sidley, so there is nothing I can’t figure out. I can plan how to get there and who I need to pull in to execute it successfully.”
At Sidley, her mentors included partner T.J. Gordon, who inspired her with his dedication to his practice. She recalls him working side-by-side with associates to close deals, no matter how long into the night it took. Working with T.J. “was just incredibly useful in shaping the way that I analyze problems and tackle them in a professional setting.” Her other mentors included Global Finance partner Mark Werner (“an amazing advocate”), Chicago office co-managing partner Teresa Harmon (“phenomenal in her kindness and ability to teach”), and Global Finance partner Allison Satyr (“who emulated how to excel at your career while prioritizing family”).
Reddy moved from Sidley’s Chicago office to Dallas in 2018, and later took a role as Corporate Counsel at Tinder in 2019, her first foray into in-house work. The role gave her the opportunity to “learn another language,” she says, when explaining legal concepts to colleagues in engineering or marketing, who might be unfamiliar with the intricacies of legal issues.
Today at TRM, her ties to Sidley continue. “My CLO is Sujit Raman, a former Sidley D.C. partner. We trust Sidley lawyers to handle various matters for us because of the strong relationships we have built, and our understanding of the quality and depth of the firm’s knowledge.”
Although distance has kept her from in-person alumni events in Chicago, she’s stayed in touch with many colleagues, including her former law school mentor and friend, Natalie Chan, now a partner in Sidley’s Labor and Employment practice, and Chan’s husband, Sidley partner Andrew Adair. In fact, while working with Adair in the firm’s Global Finance practice, Reddy played matchmaker between the two.
Outside of work, family is Reddy’s cornerstone. She loves spending time with her husband, enjoying the wonder and chaos of their two-year-old son, and showering affection on their three-year-old Sheepadoodle, whom she considers her firstborn.
Published March 2025
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