Fact is that 2012 for most teams at Luthra was an abysmal year in terms of billing, and 2013 could only have been better. Some of the details shared are inaccurate to get good press coverage because a sinking ship doesn't find too many keen travelers.

A new routine to 'motivate' better revenue must also be given due credit. When partners have to be constantly blamed and treated with hostility, in meetings and outside, for not generating enough revenue, you would expect them to cave in at some point and do whatever it takes.

"Comparatively, Biglaw associates have an arguably better pedigree" ... where did you come up with this gem from?

Quoting Thors hammer:

"Comparatively, Biglaw associates have an arguably better pedigree" ... where did you come up with this gem from?

He got it from his burning desire to bill on every given flimsy pretext.

Quoting Whats your point Zeus:

Consider these:

1) Why will a lawyer not charge money for travel time just because a matter got adjourned? That time could be utilized to service another client. Lawyers all around the world typically charge for travel time. Biglaw clients know very well that an average hearing lasts less than 15 minutes and may even be adjourned – that happens in every court.

2) Surely you don’t mean that if a client wants a lawyer to travel, then the lawyer should pay for the flight, cabs, and hotel? Expenses are typically against bills that are approved by the terms of the engagement.

3) If a lawyer misses a meeting, s/he does not charge for it. There are market mechanisms to deal with unprofessional lawyers like complaining to the managing partner or simply hiring a different firm.

As for your observation that “very few Partners/Associates are really worth what they charge”, the lesser said the better. It’s not like Small-law or counsel can justify the money they charge by some graphical representation or other calculation. Comparatively, Biglaw associates have an arguably better pedigree and they are paid more. So clients have to pay to hire their services. There is no free lunch.

Hope this clears your confusion.

Sir,

The point I am trying to make is that Biglaw adopts various tactics to shore up its billings. A 36-78% increase in billings does not necessarily reflect in a 36-78% increase in value provided to the client. Also, a lawyer-client relationship is fiduciary in nature, and the element of trust reposed by a client is often misused by Biglaw by padding time-sheets and expenses.

Proportion of revenue increase is

(a) 4% to 9% new salary packages which decrease monthly salaries (on promise of big bonuses)

(b) 10% to 14% cutting half day salary when anyone comes 30 seconds late

(c) 7% to 17% lesser bonuses (what will you do, leave? we will say we fired you)

(d) 5% to 13% gold plating bills

(e) 10% to 25% reduction in expenses as over 1/4th firm has left

= 36% to 78% increase

Well, who knows what accounting gimmick is being used, eh?

Maybe the revenue growth has been driven by the "penalty" amount paid refunded to the Firm, by the 40-50 departing associates, who preferred to breach the infamous lock-in clause in the retainer agreement, pay the "penalty" amount, and jump ship. Not to mention "penalty" amounts that the departing partners may have paid - only God knows what terms the Firm made them agree to, dangling the partnership carrot.

Ha ha ha.

Quoting H. Poirot:

Proportion of revenue increase is

(a) 4% to 9% new salary packages which decrease monthly salaries (on promise of big bonuses)

(b) 10% to 14% cutting half day salary when anyone comes 30 seconds late

(c) 7% to 17% lesser bonuses (what will you do, leave? we will say we fired you)

(d) 5% to 13% gold plating bills

(e) 10% to 25% reduction in expenses as over 1/4th firm has left

= 36% to 78% increase

HILARIOUS!

Good point Kian. That'd make uber sense.

But my wandering eye notes that it means the same to them. If one wants to compare two years, they could reduce numbers to ratios. Profit/ employee. Then compare them to say billing is up. May also benefit from attrition this way.

Point: vague information is good as none

In the garb of being 'straightforward' this is serious propaganda being stuffed down everyone's throats. Sing songs of self-praise and expect everyone to look away from the obvious. This firm is not a Tier 1 firm anymore. It has lost its star clientele AND most star performers across designations.

It is humorous that in the last round of 'straightforwardness' they justified loss of clients by saying they wanted to focus on niche practice areas and only on high revenue deals and so it was okay that Amarchand and AZB were acting for Luthra's star clients for every conceivable deal.

Now, they label loss of performers as "a MIX of natural and INTENTIONAL REDUCTIONS". Considering how 99.99% of the lawyers who have quit did so of their own accord, it seems extremely foul for him to suggest otherwise. Is this anything other than him trying to save face? Anyone at Luthra knows just how "intentional" any of the exits were, where lawyers agreed to forego salaries and bonuses, resisted threats of the glorified lock-in, and even agreed to salary deductions for trivial reasons just to quit. Anyway, those policies themselves are a topic for another day.

We get that you think you are a smart lawyer, but stunts like these tend to insult everyone's intelligence - including yours.

Nevermind the 40 to 50 associates, senior associates, managing associates who may have quit. I can think of at least 6 recent departures with catastrophic implications for any firm let alone a languishing one.

Moushami Joshi - Trade Law Practice
Madhurima - CapMarks Practice
Ajit Warrier - Litigation
Ameet Datta - IP Practice
SR Patnaik - Tax Practice
Shweta Hingorani - Corporate Team
Nivedita Tiwari - Corporate Team

All very important with great say in how things were and some credited with creating practices from scratch and entire practice areas were built around them. Them leaving meant entire teams getting wiped out. With so many associates, senior associates and managing associates leaving there are teams down to fractional sizes.. what is happening is sad

I mentioned 7 significant departures and the impact they are bound to have on any firm. It's beyond dispute that those 7 were very well established and respected professionals synonymous with Luthra's practice in their areas. They also had sway, in general, beyond their practice areas.

I feel it's sad that such exits have happened in a short span of time. Speak to anyone at Luthra, they'll agree. What reasons anyone had to quit - well, I can only speculate, some spats were more public than others. When those who you say left for personal reasons come off their sabbaticals, you should wait and see if they come back to Luthra. Nivedita is already at another firm, mind it.

The number of 40 to 50 associates/ senior associates is correct. Some amount of attrition is unavoidable, but high figures raise questions. In any case, litigation is usually the 'greener' pasture for those disillusioned with corporate firms. So, just because so many leave Luthra for litigation doesn't mean they were happy at Luthra.

Back to your point - I don't think I pointed out any half story. I didn't co-relate any of the exits to any policy or functioning. But you can't deny that running a successful business involves providing the right motivation and retaining the best guns.

Separately, I'm not convinced that this disclosure is commendable. What does it really disclose? If they wanted to disclose anything, why not disclose actual figures instead of percentage points? Because they don't actually want to disclose. If not to outside world, at least to the actual workforce billing those hours they should? What are you lauding as exemplary? Tomorrow every firm could claim to be doing 15% better than it did in the year before - it's just meaningless information. How the hell does this "ensure transparency"? Why do you think this is a "first step" of any sort which inspires any firm to do anything?

These mixed signals and half actions only breed suspicion. It seems they only wanted to put it out there that they were doing better financially while keeping everyone in the dark about the details.

I am not aware of why those people quit, and may be you are right.

My disagreement is with the latter part of your post where you say that this is pioneering transparency on Luthra's part. I really find that bit amusing because transparent is the last thing this is :-) What have you learnt at all about Luthra's financials through this "disclosure" other than that compared to 2012 (which was a crap year for most law firms anyway), 2013 saw an increase in Luthra's revenues.......ranging from 36% in some practice areas to 78% in certain others. Here are just a few top-level questions this "disclosure" raises to me, which are way more important than what has been shared by this firm:

1. Does it tell us anything at all about Luthra's revenues? Do we know, for example, if the 36% increase is on a base of 200 crores, 100 crores or 10 crores? The lower the base 2012 revenue number, the easier it is to clock a higher percentage growth.

2. Does it tell us anything meaningful about profitability? There is not even a reference to profitability numbers or even percentages, let alone PEP figures.

3. Does it address how much cost reduction happened in 2014?

Without giving some of these info, just saying 36% growth or 100% growth is not meaningful to the outside world. That's all am saying.

Now, don't get me wrong.....I am NOT one of those who thinks that law firms have a duty to disclose their revenues, profits or any other numbers to the world at large. I think it is entirely a matter of each firm's strategy, and it is laughable for anyone to suggest that firms which are not transparent with their numbers are not desirable or brave or whatever else. So, I certainly don't think Luthra owes any of us a duty to satisfy our idle curiosity on their financials. But I do think that this kind of a "disclosure" shouldn't be spun into a "transparent firm" spiel, that's all :-)

So we agree on some things. Moving to your other point I don't care much for financial disclosures but I'm no fan of gimmicks like these.

There were years we billed extensively, knew of good recoveries, worked longer hours than anyone only to be told at year end that there were poor recoveries. This opacity doesn't bode well when salaries, bonuses and revisions are contingent on these recoveries. This is a valid issue and perhaps why there is such interest.

After years of promising more transparency, they started a system of sharing some ratios of recoveries. Those are so often erroneous (some were able to calculate and point out errors) and convoluted that it is nearly impossible to verify them. The general distrust towards the management policies does not help.

Its common practice for associates to do bulk work but hours in the bill getting put in other's name for whatever reason. Sometimes a partner wasn't paying attention and thought more work was done by one lawyer than the other so he tweaks the genuine hours. Unless personally in charge of the bills, the bill isn't visible to those actually working so one never knows what revenue was generated in whose name.

These are complex issues with simple answers. Either pay out salaries and bonuses as per market norms. If you're going to pay them as per some other standard, there has to be a reasonable level of transparency and foresight on those standards otherwise things seem foul.

Otherwise how does it matter how much money the firm as a whole is making.

Quoting Scooter:

Quoting AP:

Nevermind the 40 to 50 associates, senior associates, managing associates who may have quit. I can think of at least 6 recent departures with catastrophic implications for any firm let alone a languishing one.

Moushami Joshi - Trade Law Practice
Madhurima - CapMarks Practice
Ajit Warrier - Litigation
Ameet Datta - IP Practice
SR Patnaik - Tax Practice
Shweta Hingorani - Corporate Team
Nivedita Tiwari - Corporate Team

All very important with great say in how things were and some credited with creating practices from scratch and entire practice areas were built around them. Them leaving meant entire teams getting wiped out. With so many associates, senior associates and managing associates leaving there are teams down to fractional sizes.. what is happening is sad

Well what you have pointed is just half the story.

Nivedtia, Moushami and Shweta have all left on personal reasons. Madhurima had been contemplating leaving law completely and therefore, she had applied for a sabbatical before she decided to put in her papers. So out of the 7 names you have cited, 4 of them have nothing to do with the functioning of the law firms and had left for personal reasons. When someone decides to leave on personal terms you can hardly do anything about it, right?

The remaining 3 I agree have been due to professional reasons. But you make it sound like lateral partner moves are unheard of. Such moves are fairly common.

Further, the number 40-50 associates you have cited are also not true. Most of them, which would be comfortably around 75%-80% of them have quit law firms completely and are pursuing litigation or have gone for LLM or have chosen fields completely unrelated to law. How can you associate their departure with the functioning or the policies of the firm?

I think its commendable that the firm has come forward that it has disclosed their revenue generation. This way it ensures transperancy. Unlike the west, law firms in India are completely unregulated. I think this is a first step and lets all hope that other big law =would take this as an example and disclose their financials.

Very interesting pattern demonstrated. By your assessment people develop personal issues and/or quit law altogether when in Luthra. And you seemed to have detailed data. Who are you? Ha ha ha..

How does it matter? In a way this article is about the difference between salaries of 4 or 5 guys from last year

Anyway what credibility do any numbers have when like Kian said level of disclosure is so poor. After good performance they could understate massively OR after making huge losses claim to be most profitable for sake of keeping appearances

When credibility is zero and there is no way to verify anything, of course they will say what suits immediate needs

Why not compare yourself to actual market leading firms?

That'll show just how puny your market capitalization is. Every deal table (except Projects) and client survey rate this firm as Grade C or lower. Even with % increases they could be making less money than Grade C firms.

I've heard rumors of Luthra's turnover from a reliable person in their admin and it is worthy of being compared to Grade C firms only because it is certainly not in the same league as AMSS AZB JSA Khaitan. The only way they can project that they are doing good business is by creating such 'news' themselves.

Quoting ZZ Top:

So, would any care to mention how the IP group is dwindling OR how a junior left the IP group publicly after shouting [...] to the [...] IP partner ... have been long in the business but the Firm and some of its oddities are just too out of this world!

The people who can run a business book on their own are or have been moving out and the ones who have no choice but survive on the name of Mr. Luthra/ Mohit are still hanging out in 'niche' areas.

ZZ Top

Ha ha ha ha.. that was a funny incident... but it was time someone stood up to the oppression and the unreasonableness there.

Quoting Query:

Please share the story.

From what I was told, a junior was so frustrated with the IP partner (whose name is mentioned in another deal a few days ago on LI) that the junior screamed "B1t(H" publicly - in front of the entire office and walked away ...
On a related note, the noted Copyright partner who left them some years ago has not entered the building and prefers to keep his distance from the Firm - that speaks a lot for the IP practice.

ZZ Top

Quoting Ace Comic:

Hahahaha, Mr. Saraf has a commendable sense of unintentional humour. Lose your top-notch partners and associates, terrorise the ones left with notoriously exploitative policies (lock-in, in-time out-time, working Saturdays) to feed management ego and then throw percentage numbers to the press which are more abstract than a Kadinsky painting. Way to grow L&L - in fact why doesn't the Executive Comittee just let go of all the associates and do the work on their own and send the profits skyrocketing? The last associate of L&L I met gets treated worse than cattle in a Spanish blood fiesta.

If they let go of all the Associates then who will they hound around.. who will do the work.. who will stand as a target for their shooting when their egos spiral down...

that's one of the best party lines I've heard in 2014.

ha ha.. a bit dated? those links are ancient.

nevermind, luthra hasn't revised salaries since 2009 despite written promises in offer letters and verbal assurances in interviews. in fact, salaries at some levels are LESS than what was earlier paid at same level.

when this policy was questioned, the fine gentlemen at the helm rebuked the assertion and unabashedly advocated time and again for downward revisions. look at the old links and be assured that latest pay packages would have no upward swing. add that to list of grievances to understand the discontent. principle is to pay less, hire cheap and work more.

It is not true to say salaries in the market haven't changed since 2009 or that pay packages have shrunk.

Did Luthra really make "promises" of revisions which it didn't keep? That's something. I read some comments and thought the clear lack of trust may be exaggerated. If this is true then that's shameful and deceitful. How do they expect employees to trust them?

Management is a different ballgame today and if you step out to make a fool of others chances are you'll end up playing the fool.

Wrong impression. Far from it!

Who / what gave you the impression that Luthra IP practice is any thing worth talking about ... forget it being India's finest?

They only survive on the work doled out as MnA related IP advisory that comes from the big partners.

Quoting ZZ Top:

Dear Ex Luthra:

Since you asked for basis and also mentioned 'verification', I thought that you would at least counter with 'verified' transactions.

The only time the current IP team comes in news is for IP support on due diligence on MnA transactions from the main teams.

Just to put the point more clearer ... how many people are there in the IP team now?

IP team...someone has killed the practice in a short snap of 1.5 years...the team is one third of what the last partner left...

So if Amarchand is horrible Luthra is okay as long as it is a shade better? You, sir, are one myopic idiot.

U are a cry baby clearly. How many firms do you think have received such criticism on this website. its just an expression that something is definetely wrong going there at Luthra and even at amss where the discontent towards the family is huge, such criticism isnt a regular feature, unlike luthra l, where many seem disgruntled.

U need to come back to planet earth! Highest pay master in the market, thats a funny one! instead do a survey and find out.. Ul think twice before ranting here...I doubt this is something which even the management agrees with openly.

did u just insinuate that these people are disgruntled because they want to work 1 hour a day and leave at 5.30?


HA HA HA HA!! Go back to that PSU whence you came

Is that someone from SEBI??Quoting ttt:

Quoting Guest:

U are a cry baby clearly. How many firms do you think have received such criticism on this website. its just an expression that something is definetely wrong going there at Luthra and even at amss where the discontent towards the family is huge, such criticism isnt a regular feature, unlike luthra l, where many seem disgruntled.

Luthra is a tough place to work and a tough environment to survive. Most associates don't last for more than 3-4 years in Luthra. It is a tough place with a harsh management. Its just how it is. it is not a picnic spot. Either you survive or you quit. nothing wrong with that. If you are disgruntled or discontent (in Luthra or anywhere else), you are always free to quit the organisation.

When I worked with a PSU some years back, I used to effectively work 1 hour a day and leave at 5.30. If I want to have a similar working style and get paid Luthra salaries, then clearly I will be disgruntled.

Promised pay revisions or not, isn't Luthra still one of the highest pay masters in the market?

How is your comment linked to the quantum of revenue these ladies may have generated while they were there? Madhurima, Moushumi and Shweta set up new practice area's which are doing rather well by the Firm's own admission. Madhurima and Shweta may be taking a break from corporate work but they did quite well at Luthra. Moushumi till recently was handling (and bagged) a high profile litigation for them and is now with a leading law firm in the US. NT has not 'joined a small firm' she runs it as management.

You Mr. HJK sound like you had a personal axe to grind with these lovely ladies.

is there a corelation between what they are doing now and what they meant to luthra?

who are the rainmaker partners left in the Delhi Office? Why don't you name some?? Rajiv Luthra, Rajiv Luthra and Rajiv Luthra? did I miss someone???

other firms are trying to convert parking space into office space while L&L is freeing up office space for big cars with big egos. haha!