Verus Advocates has promoted disputes partner Charles De Souza to its partnership, as one of its senior partners Jay Parikh has left the firm.
De Souza specialises in corporate-commercial disputes, banking litigation and arbitration and had joined Verus in 2011 from Bharucha & Partners.
“We have seen a surge in our disputes practice across our offices,” commented founding partner Krishnayan Sen, with Sen and partner Rishad A Chowdhury having qualified as Supreme Court advocates-on-record and the firm having scored several major litigation mandates in recent years.
The firm will also be in a larger office space from Monday, 4 May, opposite Mantralay near the Bombay High Court on Maharshi Karve Road.
Verus now has 25 fee-earners, including five partners.
Parikh moves on
Meanwhile, partner Jay Parikh has left the firm. He had joined Verus in 2012 with Dipankar Bandyopadhyay from Bharucha & Partners, where both were senior associates.
Bandyopadhyay will take over leading the corporate practice of the firm from Parikh.
Sen commented that Parikh “has decided to move on to another firm effective 1 June 2015”.
He added: “Jay has been a great partner, a caring senior and a true friend. His departure will create a void which will be difficult to fill; and its sad that we lost him to, what I understand, a big-law firm… We wish him all the very best in his new role; and he will continue to carry a bit of Verus with him, wherever he goes.”
Parikh commented: “It was an exhilarating 3 years after founding Verus. I am taking some time off to think what next. I will always wish Verus well.”
Update 19:51: According to two authoritative sources, Parikh is in advanced stages of discussions to join Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi managing partner Shardul Shroff’s new Mumbai firm, which is expected to be set up after mediations end with Shardul Shroff’s brother and current co-managing partner Cyril Shroff. However, Parikh declined to comment when asked whether he would join Shardul Shroff. We have reached out to Shardul Shroff for comment.
Sen said that Verus’ corporate practice had grown well last year, with the help of partner Siddharth Bhavnani who joined from Dua Associates late last year and had acted for Focal Energy on a solar power project in Madhya Pradesh. Other transactions of the firm included a Rs 1,300 crore debt restructuring opposite Trilegal, advising HDFC mutual fund on a large bond issue by Adani Ports, a large residential real estate transaction in Mumbai, said Sen.
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But is it really a loss for one and gain for the other ? Or will it work the other way round in reality !
1. How many equity partners does Verus have? Is Chowdhury an equity partner? What about Charles? Will h have equity? What happened to Sourav Bhagat? www.legallyindia.com/201203312699/Law-firms/breaking-4-nujs-partners-join-4-city-start-up-verus-from-courts-and-bharucha
2. If Parikh moving only for the money or is there something else? For eg what really happened between Parikh and Bandopadhyay?
But expecting LI to ask these questions will be unfair since it involves actual journalism, not manipulating press releases.
1. I admit that we tend to go slightly softer on younger start-up firms, since I feel there is less public interest reasons in asking the tough questions of younger firms as opposed to the larger and older firms.
2. Both sides seemed pretty amicable in their comments.
3. I believe you're right though that there's a bit more to this departure than reported. Not sure if it's personal issues between any individual partners but seems to be some sort of disagreement about the strategic future of the firm.
4. Equity structures at smaller firms we don't tend to examine so closely either, since a lot of them are quite fluid and informal.
5. Ironically, despite being a younger firm, Verus did better on the PR front in this story than most larger firms. Obviously they packaged Parikh's departure alongside some positive spin in an exclusive press release, and they were proactive in coming out with the news rather than hoping it would pass unnoticed. But since we were understaffed Friday and there were 3 or 4 other news stories breaking, we didn't do a huge amount of probing of it.
In short, yes, we could have taken a different angle on this. But while this story might not tell the entire picture, I don't think it's inaccurate, deceptive or uninformative...
Until recently..one Partner had a separate office space.. find out why.
Due to the number of start-ups and everything else, we have our hands full, but when other start-ups tell us about their deals we often try to give them priority over big ticket deals too.
But a lot of start-ups are shy... :)
Also, out of recent start-ups, only a few developed any sense of scale and ambition, at least in partner numbers - there was/is Verus, PXV, Advaya, and a few more. Most others remain founding partner shops or get acquired, so there's not that much to write about...
So in short, if you run a start-up, do get in touch - LI has a soft spot for you. :)
And as has historically always been the case- all such start up firms will face tough resistance mah friends !!! Thats always how it workS !!! Honestly, i couldn't care less about the internal politics, which is prevalent in all firms. As always there are 2 sides of a coin and there will always be stories floating around !
But i sincerely hope a few more of us have what it takes to throw away the hefty package & have the courage to do it from scratch & be our own king !!
Until then...AMEN :)
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