L&L Partners
Luthra & Luthra has promoted two lawyers in Delhi to partner and elevated 9 associates to the senior and managing associate rungs, with corporate seeing more than half of the action.
Titus & Co and Trilegal from Pool A and Luthra & Luthra and Dua Associates from Pool D have won against their respective opponents in the second round of the intra-pool matches played this weekend between Delhi law firms for the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) Cup in the TURF Twenty20 tournament.
Exclusive: Amarchand Mangaldas has reclaimed the top rank in Legally India’s 2010-11 first-half-year initial public offering (IPO) league table ahead of Luthra & Luthra, with AZB & Partners winning third place after doubling its IPO mandates compared to the same period last year as Khaitan & Co dropped four ranks.
Luthra & Luthra has built on its lead in the Dealogic Indian project finance league table of the first three quarters of 2010, as Amarchand Mangaldas completed four project financings in the last quarter and caught up into second place ahead of newcomers such as Axon Partners LLP and R&A Legal Advocates. Globally the top two firms are also in the top 10 of project finance legal advisers by value.
Amarchand’s Delhi office celebrated its 30th birthday this month and the office’s architects Shardul and Pallavi Shroff even received a rather touching Robert Frost-inspired ode by a proud partner to heroes sung and unsung. Less joyously, this month also marked the first departure of one of the firm’s new equity partners who were taken onto the partial lockstep two years ago.
Trilegal is awaiting a response from the Bar Council of India (BCI) on whether the firm is allowed to convert to a limited liability partnership (LLP) under the Advocates Act, as start-up Vidhii Partners vowed to convert to LLP in two months and Luthra & Luthra, Nishith Desai Associates, IndusLaw and at least eight other firms have reserved respective LLP names.
Amarchand, Luthra & Luthra, Khaitan & Co and Trilegal have all ramped up their basic starter pay above Rs 10 lakhs, with offered packages including bonuses now running up to Rs 15 lakh at the top end.
Luthra & Luthra jointly topped Legally India's quarterly IPO league tables for the first time alongside Amarchand Mangaldas over the first quarter of the 2010-11 financial year with five mandates each while AZB & Partners slotted into third place.
Two offices of AZB & Partners acted on opposite sides of a Chinese Wall for private equity investor Matrix India and gold loan company Muthoot Finance in a 4 per cent investment totalling Rs 157 crore with Luthra & Luthra advising second investor Baring Private Equity Partners India.
NUJS Kolkata saw almost a third of its batch snapped up by law firms as Amarchand Mangaldas, Khaitan & Co, Luthra & Luthra and Trilegal together made 30 offers two weeks ago.
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.
Luthra & Luthra was the most active project finance legal advisers both by value and volume in the first half of 2010, followed by India Law Services, SJ Law Advocates & Solicitors, Amarchand Mangaldas and AZB & Partners and SN Gupta & Co, according to data compiled for Legally India by data provider Dealogic.
Amarchand Mangaldas acted on more than half of the total number of Qualified Institutional Placements (QIPs) in Legally India's QIP League Table of the 2009-2010 fiscal year. AZB & Partners and Khaitan & Co were the second-busiest followed by J Sagar Associates (JSA) and Crawford Bayley and S&R Associates amongst domestic firms.
International firm Jones Day bagged the maximum QIPs out of foreign law firms acting for the book running lead managers while Linklaters, Dorsey & Whitney and Clifford Chance also won mandates on a significant numbers of fundraisings.