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http://www.geocities.ws/kream77/amarchand.html
27 May 2004
Ramblings of a former Amarchand Associate
Introduction – A little bit about myself!
Hi! Many of you may know me as a madman who came to NLS for a week in May, as one who was rude to Professor Visalakshi in the first-year class, as a person some of the LL.M students believe “threatened to thrash” Bishwarup, as one who walked around campus with a menacing grimace and a not-so-pleasant disposition! Some of you may remember me as a pleasant bloke with a lot of angst – Aditya Jha, Shinoj Koshy, Manu and a few others. At the outset, let me apologize to all those who felt threatened, scared and got upset by my behaviour. My intentions were noble, my method a little harsh.
No, I did not threaten to thrash Bishwarup, and yes, I was rude to Professor Visalakshi but the reason was the complete degradation of contract law (which I believe to be the foundation of commercial law).
Who am I? My name is Ashwin Mathew. I studied at what I believe is one of the finest institutions in this country, NLS, from 1993 to 1998. I did well and was recruited on campus by Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A. Shroff & Co. I worked at Amarchand for 6 years. I left at the end of January 2004.
Objective
What struck me when I visited NLS recently, was the unidirectional focus on a career at Amarchand. Students of NLS often asked me about myself. What seemed to impress them was not that I was a former student but that I worked at Amarchand for 6 years. I was saddened by such reactions. I hope what I write down in this essay makes you guys think about your futures and your goals. As Pablo Picasso said “If you know what you are doing and why you are doing it, don’t do it. Try something else!”
Let me also clarify (for the “cynics”, “unbelievers”, die-hard fans of Amarchand) that this essay is not a critique of Amarchand or an attempt at venting my angst against a venerable institution. I merely provide a perspective from someone who’s been there and done that! Advice, they say, is easy to give, it costs nothing. To which I add, advice is easy to dismiss, it too costs nothing! The choice is yours…
What does NLS give you?
Have any of you wondered what expertise NLS gives you?
At the end of my 5th year, I too believed I had the world at my feet, that I had tremendous legal acumen and that my breadth of legal knowledge was incapable of challenge. After a couple of months at Amarchand, I realized a bitter truth – I was a seedling in the vast legal field filled with the garbage of deceit, incestuous back-rubs and wily litigators on the one hand and banyan trees of knowledge, understanding and compassion on the other! I had no experience in practical application of legal theory. I was dismissed as verbose and pedantic. I was crushed. My confidence hit a low.
It was time to think, to ponder…NLS gave me the gift of articulation, the ability to research a legal issue thoroughly and (for those who were diligent) the basics of law.
Law to me is about people and their relationships. Law balances conflict since every human relationship is founded on the propensity towards conflict. Therefore, law is vital to human harmony and discipline. Corporate law is no different.
Amarchand – A counter
Amarchand – the name sends shivers down your spine, makes you imagine the pinnacle of achievement, makes you strive towards an elusive partnership at this august institution. Your eyes light up – aah, yes, Cyril has done his job well. He has made believers out of most of you. He attracts the finest NLS has to offer…
But stop, Do any of you know the pain that Piyush Joshi, Cyrus Bharucha, Aazmeen Kasad, Tushna Thapliyal and myriad others faced as a result of this great organization. Have any of you thought about why Vinati Kastia left the organization after making partner? Have any of you wondered why Rajesh Marralla, Sandeep Farias, P. Sunil, Kajal Bhardwaj left Amarchand?
How many people make partner at Amarchand? How many people are Senior Associates? How many are from NLS? Do the math, the numbers will startle. They are but a miniscule drop in the ocean of talent that Amarchand receives from NLS every year. Probably, a little more than 5%.
The mantras
Mantra 1 – Negative Oppression – Amarchand thrives on negative oppression. Take a brilliant mind, oppress it with negativity, constant criticism, uncertainty and transform such brilliance into craven commercial greed.
Mantra 2 – Create commitments – Cyril’s favourite associates are all married to one another – Ashwath & Nimisha, Rahul & Runa…They may love one another but an invisible hand did push them together! Cyril’s economic largesse ensures loans to Amarchand associates to chain them to him till they are economically capable of repaying him. A loyalty bonus is payable for those who have spent 8 years in the organization. To alleviate the cost of living in Mumbai, Cyril re-imburses each Amarchand associate a fraction of the actual cost. To live in a 1BHK house in a decent part of Mumbai with a car costs a minimum of Rs. 25,000 a month. Otherwise, settle for a PG and suffer!
Mantra 3 – Ease out ineptitude – All those considered inept are not shown the door immediately. They are eased out. Take Ranbir Singh, Tushna, Aazmeen.
Mantra 4 – If you are not from NLS, make sure you are connected – Most non-NLS recruits in Amarchand are well connected. Be it a judge’s son or a top Chartered Accountant’s, be it the daughter of ICICI Bank’s Executive Director or the daughter of a top executive at the Aditya Birla Group. Another thing, know this, all non-NLSites at Amarchand generally dislike NLS students. Amarchand ensures that they must do much more to succeed. A classic example is Shaneen Dastur, partner of Amarchand. It took her 9-10 years to make salaried partner after being a qualified solicitor. Understandably, she dislikes NLS students who can make equity partner in 7 years.
Envy…
The Positives
Positive 1 – Brilliant Partners – Amarchand is blessed with some of the finest partners in India. Cyril is the foremost commercial lawyer in the country with good reason. M. P. Bharucha is the foremost litigating solicitor in the country and has a decent non-litigation practice. Alka Bharucha’s articulation and people skills are tremendous. Shardul & Pallavi are brilliant legal minds. Umakanth and Vishwanath are leaders in their respective fields and wonderful human beings.
Positive 2 – Great Work – The work in Amarchand is superb. You would feel pride when you pick up an economic daily every day and find one your deals mentioned as a headline. Invariably, Amarchand advises the top dealmakers.
The Negatives
Negative 1 – Vitiated Working Environment – The famous adage, “protect me, not from my enemies of whom I know of, but from my friends of whom I know not” applies to the Amarchand environment. The work-stations are arranged like an assembly line in a car workshop or a seamstress factory. The noise levels are terrible. The A/C is switched off at 7 PM (there is no cross-ventilation). Better off working in a sweat-shop in Thailand!
Negative 2 – Vandana Shroff – Spend a week in the Amarchand dining room! Also, note the names given to each loo – Raja & Rani, Romeo and Juliet, Mardana & Zardana. Also, note the reserved parking spots. Also, note Valencia, Sripat and Ramesh (the informers!). Also note, the allocation of work. Also note, Deepak Jobanputra (fondly called D Jo), the IT expert! “Res Ipsa Loquitur”!
Negative 3 – Horrible IT resources – Amarchand does not have a database. The IT support is pathetic. A lot of time is wasted in re-inventing the wheel.
Negative 4 – Big Ideas, No Implementation – Cyril has vision but does not have the administrative capabilities to implement them. M. P. Bharucha has the administrative capabilities but cannot work with Cyril since their working styles are totally different.
Negative 5 – The Evaluation System and Bonus – There is no transparency in evaluations and very often evaluations are done by a partner who has not seen a single day’s work by the Junior Associate being evaluated. And, please consider your first evaluation as a good indicator of where you will be slotted. Also, as far as the Bharucha’s go there is no co-relationship between the evaluations and the level of bonus. While your entitlement may be large, know this, what you finally get is a fraction of your entitlement. Sometimes as low as 55% of your bonus entitlement.
Negative 6 – Delhi and Mumbai follow different policies – If you work in Delhi chances are you will go up the Amarchand ladder quicker than Mumbai. Double promotions happen in Delhi, not in Mumbai (except Nimisha). The policies are completely different and so is the work culture. Promotions in Delhi are also based on the level of billings. In Mumbai, that is “irrelevant”.
A Final Word
Join Amarchand for experience. But prepare yourself for 16-hour days, no food, no life outside Amarchand and a constant sense that you will never be good enough. Ask yourself this, what makes you happy? The desire to get up early and enjoy the day or the dread of what the day may bring you? In Amarchand, most likely, the latter will apply.
Those of you who want to experience the angst I went through after Amarchand, please read my play “The Soul of Law”. Some people in NLS have a copy.
For those who still dream of being an Amarchand partner, I wish you luck…Just a caution, when you feel used and exploited, get out.
I end with a few lines from my favourite verses:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance well run…
How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry?
How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?
How may associates will it take to be known that too many NLSites have died!
The answer is in you…
Best wishes and Good Luck,
Ashwin Mathew
NLS Batch of 1998.
Hindi / Urdu has a word for it... "Majboori" until you stabilise or find something better or worse when your self respect cannot take the humiliation any longer.
Tru for most places BTW
1. When I tested positive for COVID, I was begrudgingly given 6 days off. Two of my partners tried to assign work to me more than once (which could've easily been handled by someone else; I wasn't the only one with background).
2. A partner who I was working with until the day before I got my results when I had all the symptoms - including fever and terrible throat ache, had no qualms about screaming at me and being absolutely unforgiving when it came to a couple of mistakes in my mark-up of documents (please note that I was working until the wee hours of the morning with fever), but when eventually found out that I had COVID, didn't drop me even a message/ email asking how I was feeling, or if I needed any support (I was eventually taken off the transaction because of my 6 days of absence). Guess flipping off the humanity switch is a condition precedent to partnership at AZB.
3. A colleague who recently lost a parent and couldn't fill timesheets on time still received an email from Jiaah asking why entries were incomplete. Couldn't the concerned reporting partner/ HR (who knew about the bereavement leave) preemptively have reached out to Jiaah to explain the situation and avoid this? Guess not.
4. Personal attacks/ use of colourful adjectives when giving juniors feedback, are extremely common - lines such as 'at your seniority, how could you make this mistake?' / 'at your level, there is only so much hand-holding I can do!' / 'if I am expected to review/ oversee even this, why do I even need you on the transaction?' / 'extremely unhelpful and unthoughtful draft', are to name a few. So, irrespective of what people tell you at the time of joining about not hesitating about asking questions, some seniors would really prefer that you leave them alone and figure things out on our own.
To stick around in AZB is to convince oneself that the firm and the management that pummels you with insults, apathy and discrimination, and chooses to not pay you adequately or on time, is a looming Mr. Hyde, who the moment you learn to live with and adapt to, is a very small price to pay for the wonderful Dr. Jekyll, which is the learning experience that the firm offers. However, in this case, the trade off feels more and more like a toxic and abusive relationship, where nothing you do seems good enough.
On a separate note, Jiaah has very recently asked the partners to let their respective teams know that going forward, there will be no fidelity bonus, travel allowance or leave encashment.
All the very best to those of you looking to join the firm! I am on my way out!
Lack of empathy is evenly displayed towards men and women - no discrimination sire
there are Associates, Senior Associates, Partners, Senior Partners, Managing Partner.
Yes there is lip service to the cause by putting in place optical things such as "dont have to address seniors as Sir / Mam". But thats about it. Ask anyone, who has been around. In reality, there is hierarchy. Thats how the work gets done.
** Positive ** - I’ve not seen a firm as non- hierarchical as Azb, flexible dress code (does not have any stupid rules).
**Negative ** - 10 am punch-in time, lack of trust in employees (non- existent wfh policy pre COVID, recent hasty decision to call people back to work amid COVID).
A senior personnel left when she was expecting. I asked her why does she not take maternity leave that she is entitled to and then leave. She said that she does not want to get into the stress of being bullied and harassed after her child was born and rather let go of the job now than later!
Actually, come to think of it they are treated exactly like men. So no gender discrimination (or support!) here :)
People have made a lot about juniors learning a lot. I would consider them as doing firefighting without being trained fully in how to do it. So at best you will be a an untrained firefighter, and at worst get burnt.
Assuming you have 2000 productive work hours (not billable, not the time-pass) in a year, you'll take 5 years for 10,000 hours of practice at AZB. How different is that compared to other firms? AZB A0s might be working 15 hours everyday, while some other A0 for 14 hours, both would be actually productive for 10 hours a day at most without doing cocaine or something.
If I had to identify this, it would be that the culture looks outward to its associates and resources - it seems any actions that are taken that may even seem to benefit associates are taken incredibly begrudgingly. Case in point, the office reopening debacle. While the covid numbers did not look promising at all, and WFH seeming like an absolute success (many groups billed more than they had in the previous year), there was a sudden call to start returning to the metros where the offices are. Recent joinees rented places and paid lock-ins, and moved houses only to realize that the office will not open at all and got stuck in lock-downs in strange cities. There was an open house scheduled for this reopening which included exactly 0 arguments/statements in the favour of continuing WFH. There was supposedly an anonymous question portal - which was either not used by anyone in fear of retribution or moderated by the HR team which instead raised completely tone deaf queries such as 'What does XYZ think of the recently concluded American elections?'.
When the firm realized that other law firms were offering a COVID leave - a policy was hastily put together which provided for 7 (sEvEN) days of covid leaves if you or a household member is diagnosed. Even the most notorious WhatsApp forwards are now aware that the recovery period for the rona is at least 14 days. Such actions seemed to be approved so that a placeholder counter exists to any complaints that may arise from inside or outside the firm about basic compassion that can be shown to a 'resource'.
The recent increments have been amply covered elsewhere on this publication and it seems many many resources are now contemplating exits. No one is surprised because very shockingly, at such a successful firm doing so many incredible things, there are very very few things in place to build loyalty. Unfortunately, the money does not do the job alone.
1. I've never worked at a place that is as truly non-hierarchical. On my first day, a partner told me come with me for a smoke and then proceeded to bitch out Mummyji to me, a first year. In the words of Michael Scott, sometimes what brings the kids together is hating the lunch lady.
2. It's the best training ground there is - mostly because you do so much at such a junior level and are constantly stressed. The 10,000 hours of practice rule to perfection doesn't have a better ground to be tested (because you'll hit those 10K hours much sooner than your peers at other firms). Does it suck? Yes. Does it make you a better lawyer for it? Also yes.
3. It's a great springing board. From my intake back in the day, there were only 10 people who joined the Bombay office. Of those 10, 7 got LLMs at the best universities and jobs outside the country. Not saying that's the path for everyone, but if you can stomach it for a few years, you can have a myriad of opportunities waiting for you.
Good luck. A senior partner told me when I quit, congratulations on getting out of the quick sand before you got sunk in. Make sure you don't let the quick sand sink you in.
When I say aggressive - I mean:
(1) the drive to achieve billable hours etc. is INSANE.
(2) Everything is centralised. EVERYTHING. Not even senior equity partners have any real say or even authority to review their own teams.
(3) the starting point is mistrust your people. If someone avails WFH (in good old days there was a policy), it was looked down with high amount of suspicion. Partners were told to "sensitise" their teams on Dos and Donts
(4) Increments are bad. Zia's mantra is to offer money at the time of joining. Post that, there is no real inclination to focus on rewarding the hard work. It is only to find faults.
(5) Billing takes insane amount of time. Zia wants to check EVERY invoice before it goes out (under the pretext of checking OPs)
(6) No genuine HR, COO etc.. They are all glorified executive assistants to Zia
(7) In summary, Zia is the judge, lawyer and executioner when it comes to managing her law firm. Rest dont matter
Kha jati hai sara khana kera, ab ghar mein khane to kuch nahi bacha hai, kuch nahi Bacha hai!
Dude, this is why I cannot leave my current firm.
Worst place in terms of caring for people’s well being - even amongst law firms.
Surprisingly, most partners are good but the toxicity is present at the high levels (Level Z)
If the firm exhibits such toxicity, both in terms of pay and culture, how does it continue to survive, given the fact that HR's of other Tier-1 firms have been on a hiring spree (for senior positions)?
I fail to understand why would anyone work in such an environment (except freshers) when they already have other options?
As someone who is set to join Azb, I would really appreciate if someone working there could throw some light on this. I understand your busy schedule but would be very happy if you could answer my question.
Thank You.