Two former Kainth & Associates retainers Akshara Kumar Chittur and Mahesh Revana have joined as partners.

Kainth was found dead in his Bangalore home in February, allegedly murdered by two security guards who were arrested a few days later.

His widow Sigrid Kainth, who lives in Germany with his two children closed the firm’s branch offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai a short while later, with some lawyers in those offices relocating to Bangalore.

In April, she brought back Venugopal to run the firm, who had left Kainth & Associates as a partner in 2011 to start VRC Legal in Bangalore. Chittur and Revana had joined her at VRC as partners the same year.

Venugopal told Legally India that she now held a majority of the equity in Kainth Associates and that Sigrid Kainth was not involved in management, although she “has been a good mentor”.

Chittur added: “[Dr Kainth] was an overseer, now Anupama is in that position. His family benefits from us and all our management is done in consultation with them but this is our firm.” She said that the firm’s practice areas and clients remained the same – corporate and commercial, real estate, intellectual property (IP) and labour law.

Parallel structure

However, Venugopal, Chittur and Revana will continue running VRC Legal and its clients in parallel to Kainth & Associates. Venugopal said that the latter would eventually be rebranded, but Chittur noted that a full merger was “not immediately on the cards”. Running the two firms side by side would be a “beautiful challenge”, she added.

Kainth & Associates now has eight lawyers, including three partners, having shrunk from a size of 15 lawyers between four offices before Kainth’s death; VRC Legal has a total of six lawyers. Kainth is currently expanding its team.

Venugopal graduated in 1998 from Bangalore University and practiced in the Karnataka high court focussing on labour laws, before joining Kainth & Associates in 2001 as an associate. She was made partner in 2005 with focus on drafting commercial documents, mergers & acquisitions, property law, IP, labour law and company law.

Chittur graduated in 2009 from Symbiosis Pune and worked at Kainth as an associate for two years before joining VRC Legal. She focuses on general commercial contracts and labour law.

Revana graduated from VLC Bangalore in 2004, and worked at GDS & Associates until 2006 when he joined Kainth. He left the firm in 2011 as a senior associate. Assisted by a senior associate, he focuses on company matters, foreign direct investment, M&A and real estate.

Chittur and Revana had re-joined Kainth in April. Revana took over the mandates of former partner Satish Srinivasan who had left Kainth in March to eventually join ALMT Legal Bangalore yesterday.