Law firms

Luthra & Luthra's capital markets practice has increased its leverage structure with the hire of its alumni Indraneel Basu Majumdar as a managing associate on "partnership track" from Clifford Chance.

Majumdar was a senior associate at Clifford Chance for three years, having previously joined Luthra & Luthra with partner Madhurima Mukherjee (pictured) who joined the firm from Amarchand Mangaldas in 2006 to set up the capital markets team.

Majumdar said that he and Mukherjee had been in touch regularly during his time at Clifford Chance, particularly over the last eight months or so "as the India market started really resisting global trends".

"The exciting bit is India seems to have managed to keep the capital markets story going, throughout the worst of times and that's the exciting bit… I firmly believe we're on the cusp of a wave." He predicted that in the next two years or sooner market activity would cross 2007 levels again, although things were "on the mend" in the London market too.

"I landed on Tuesday and am already pulling all nighters," joked Majumdar.

Mukherjee said he was a significant addition to the practice: "[He] is a senior capital markets lawyer who had an excellent reputation in the country.

"He will just need to catch up as he has been out of the country for three years, which we have no doubt he will do. We will also capitalise on this international experience to further improve our systems and practice."

She added that Majumdar was "on partnership track based on performance and integration back into the Indian market". "If the practice was growing there was always more scope for people to grow," she noted.

However, she explained that the headcounts of the capital markets team were currently adequate for the work at hand but that a strong second layer of fee-earners was necessary.

Luthra & Luthra's capital markets practice team consists of 22 lawyers, she said, which included herself in Delhi and Mumbai partner Manan Lahoty who re-joined the firm from Shearman & Sterling in 2009 and was promoted to partnership at the end of that year.

With Majumdar the team now also includes two managing associates and five senior associates.

Mukherjee added that the firm was looking to hire slowly rather than "just having large numbers of untrained bodies on ground and undergoing a rapid churn of frustrated people every year".

In May former Clifford Chance senior associate Sudipta Routh joined Luthra's Mumbai office as a partner to build up the firm's corporate practice in the financial capital.

Clifford Chance declined to comment.