HSA Advocates has hired Dr Madhumita Kothari as a dispute resolution partner based in Delhi.

From 2018 she been the managing partner of her independent practice, Juris International, which was based in and loosely associated with the chambers of senior counsel Salman Khurshid. We have reached out to Kurshid’s chambers for comment.

Besides a 2003 LLB from Delhi University, Kothari holds myriad degrees according to her LinkedIn profile (see below), including a BSc and MA in Geography, an MPhil, MBA, postgraduate diploma in international human rights law, a PhD in maritime studies and an LLM in shipping laws.

She had also been a professor of law at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, which operates under the umbrella of India’s Ministry of Commerce & Industry.

According to HSA’s press release: “In addition to advising clients on a variety of commercial and family disputes, she has built a specialization across several industry sectors such as shipping, aviation, infrastructure, retail, and insurance.”

According to HSA, Kothari has also been decorated with a Bharat Gaurav Ratna Award, International Women Achiever’s Award, Art Moda and Kala Samman Award.

In a press release, managing partner Hemant Sahai said: “We are very happy to welcome Madhumita to HSA’s dispute resolution & arbitration team, which continues to be one of our core practice offerings. Her wide experience will augment our capabilities in advising our clients across different industry sectors.”

HSA has seen considerable churn of partners recently (Gaurav Sahay and Aditya K Singh joined Link Legal, while senior partner Apoorva Misra left for independent practice and infrastructure partner Akshay Malhotra moving to Khaitan & Co).

Nevertheless, it has managed to stabilise the total numbers of partners with continuing lateral hires (in July 2020, the firm had 31 partners), including hiring Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas corporate partner Saurya Bhattacharya and independent lawyer Sumit P.

Sahai said that HSA Advocates was now “a 26 partner collegium”, which included associate partners. “Our planned strength is not to exceed 30 partners for some time,” he added.