Anything but toxic. you have either not ever been in this team or have not performed well in this team. Vacancies will always be there in any law firm team as large as this, especially after bonus season. Any transaction team is intense - Ravindra’s is one of the far better ones with simpler people

They are looking out now from what I hear. There’s a vacancy message going around on WhatsApp groups. A decent cv with atleast some transaction experience should get you to interviews atleast. No use applying to cam as a fresher. Better off trying for PPOs or college placements

Extremely volume heavy team. They have lost 3 PAs, 1 SA and 1 A2 this financial year and have been able to replace with only 1 A3 and 1 A2. The team is harsh in its judgement and does not have any work place boundaries

Given the structure (4 partners) the approach towards work is inconsistent which basically means too much redline. There is NO work life balance and there are constant (I am not saying this lightly) deliverables and deadlines. They do not take kindly to people fall ill or having a life.

I personally know people who have developed massive anxiety issues and have panic attacks because of working in this team but are stuck for one reason or another.

They have ok clients but they really need to expand the team and learn to play less favourites also.

Can't comment on the team or the work culture, but have known Bandhu since college. He has not changed one bit in 30 years. Completely disarming, self-effacing, sensitive and thoughtful. Bumped into him in an airport just 3 weeks ago and he was the same realistic and decent guy he always was. He understands human foibles and I would imagine that is a great quality in a team leader. If he isn't over-delegating and is keeping an eye, I would imagine it's an excellent team.

Ravi is not the problem he’s a good boss. You just technically won’t be dealing with him directly for the most part. ▮▮▮ The timings are fairly flexible compared to other teams but it’s easier if Ravi is your boss as he spends most of his time in Bangalore.

The team doesn’t love each other. It’s hard to do with this kind of work load. ▮▮▮. Not the healthiest environment. Another PA is leaving. One of the PAs is lovely. ▮▮▮ The also tend to cut the PQE of lateral hires more than other teams at CAM. This is unfair and insane since this isn’t the best team to be in and they always want people.

Out of the partners, VP seems the most normal. Quality of work is decent. Good exposure in terms of clients. But genuinely the loveliest person in the team is Sarita Khatana. She’s the team EA. She’s a gem of a person.

With every change, a new normal becomes normal. This is similar to how covid made WFH, normal and after covid, WFO has become new normal. In this team, normal was always to work 16 hrs a day, 7 days a week, which is currently 20 hrs a day, 7 days a week. Among existing partners, Ravi is the most normal (relatively). If I say anything else, it will get censored.

Honest opinion, best team for transactional work in NCR. Volume is high, downtime is low, people are sensible, seniors are reasonable mostly but can be difficult sometimes, learning is steep, expectations are very high. Team rewards sincerity, hardwork and ownership. Not for anyone looking to just add transactional work in the CV without being ready to put in the effort. Anyone having a free ride is identified, given fair warning, allowed time to fix, and if no improvement, phased out.

The main benefit in this team is the high quality of work and exposure in terms of transactional work. The seniors can be a bit difficult in terms of deadlines and expectations but are reasonable overall and generally open to conversation. The team members are good people - but constant high work pressure and expectations can create friction and frustration within the team. Join this team with the mindset of working long hours and meeting tough deadlines consistently. There is downtime but it’s rare. There is also a bit of favourism in the team but there’s more to the situation than meets the eye. Favouritism towards top performers is something one will face in any team. But the team is not a bad place to be at all, especially if you are ready to put in the work and give up on work life balance. You will learn a lot from the high standards of deals along with bright and experienced seniors.

The work is transactional work. Whether it is too notch-no. Is it bottom of the barrel crud-no. It is in-between, which is not bad. A young enthu associate gets to learn from such work. Hence the question becomes why join this team. Answer is- only if you have the following reasons (I) the team invests in your growth (not stab you in your back at the time of promotions and increments) , (II) the seniors are ready to mentor (and not just use the word 'mentoring' to lure the associate during interviews), (III) the team offers sufficient break between heavy transactions (not just a fake one day off on which also you are disturbed for everything else), (IV) the team provides opportunities to speak up and convey concerns (and not punish dissent), (V) the seniors and partners are nice and kind and speak to you as a professional/ human (and not obnoxious, sly and/or petty in their approach).

I think just ask around if this team falls in the category above. If not, don't consider. If yes, please do. I am sure you will get the answer easily if you track down and speak to, some of the people who left this team in last one year.

Valid point. Why don't you list out what a partner expects from an associate. Ideally you should set out the expectations but the expectations need to be objective. The parameters you have, to rate an associate to determine bonus payout would do but what does the team do, to prepare an associate to perform on those. Provide sufficient training but also allow for sufficient time for the associate to, settle down, learn the ways of the different partners in the same team, learn the ways of different clients who insist in being different or difficult, learn the eccentricity of each individual in the team. Having said that, my experience says that person learns faster and perform exponentially better when he or she feels valued, secure and happy (and not a target of random team politics). Therefore, be human and learn to emphatise (and stop being petty). That is one quality that is missing and one cannot blame workload for that because I have seen many great partners in law firms who remain human including Ravindra.

No clue what that means. I am only putting across my perspective, and not debating or trying to win a point. Clearly the quality of managers is so bad that they are not even clear about their expectations and therefore all they do is shout back and blame the juniors by saying that the juniors are not capable of learning. They are happy to tell the juniors that law firm is not a school and the juniors should act in a professional manner. However, most of the times these seniors behave like school masters who expect the juniors professionals to ask for their leave before leaving office everyday even if you have no work. They even write off juniors for BO. That is the brand of professionalism they are professing.

I know someone who left the team and have spoken to people who are planning to leave. ▮▮▮. There is no concept of work life balance, mid level doesn't know how to balance work life or timelines and juniors are, well, chilled out? I keep hearing things from different levels and nobody sounds sane

They are actually insensitive to people with personal life issues, medical conditions or individual goals.

I would rather not be in a team than be a part of that team

Ravi, afaik, is brilliant at his job but the Noida office is a mess. Maybe, if he's expanding Bangalore, that is worth considering

There is a growing incompetence at the mid-level in the team. Bashing the team on this forum is not the solution- the members actually need to see how much work they are putting in for a team which is PE, volume heavy.

The team does decent work. Nothing very high level. Nothing very complicated and if the juniors are not able to keep up that means their quality is truly questionable

The team is actually a brilliant place to learn. If you're willing to put in hours and use your mind on some days at least

Gen Z dreams about life and law firm realities will always clash and you always know what prevails

It is correct that bashing the team here is not the solution. That said, idea is for the team management and managers to take note and do something about how the team is being run. If ranting of associates on these forums or feedback which is being provided by them directly to each manager is not warning enough, atleast take the attrition rate in this team as the warning.

Incompetence at any level is a reflection of incompetence of hiring managers and their inability to teach. No one learns merely because they are "willing to put in hours". Such a millennial thing to say. Solution lies in simple things on part of managers i.e., be less condescending, be more humble, take out time to explain (and yes different people learn at different pace so be little patient), invest in each associate and identify each associate's strength and weakness and work with them on those (rather than setting them up for failure from the beginning). In the end it will only help the managers to pass on some work stress if they manage to train some juniors well. If not then feel free to continue working like a execution partner since you are happy to work in a "PE" team doing "volume heavy" "decent work".

Why do people in PE/M&A teams of most law firms doing mostly very basic SSAs and SHAs have such a snobbish tone? The best PE and M&A works is done by 1-2 teams in any law firm. Rest everyone is doing run-of-the-mill work. Not a comment on this team but it is not even worth discussing.

There are persistent and serious concerns regarding the way this team is being run, particularly with respect to leadership conduct, accountability, and the treatment of junior associates.

▮▮▮
Errors are regularly attributed to juniors in order to shield senior team members from responsibility. This has become a recurring pattern rather than an exception, resulting in a working environment where accountability is unevenly applied and junior associates are left exposed.

The approach to discipline further reinforces this dynamic. Associates are contacted immediately—sometimes within a minute of the reporting time—if they are not physically present, and are threatened with financial consequences for arriving after rigid cut-offs. These measures appear disconnected from actual performance or output and contribute to an atmosphere of surveillance rather than professionalism.

Levels of dissatisfaction among associates are visibly high. Characterising this as a mismatch between generational expectations and law firm culture overlooks the fact that associate attrition has been a longstanding issue in this team, well before recent cohorts entered the workforce. The underlying issues are cultural and structural.

A recurring concern is the absence of upward accountability. While mid-level resources are frequently asked to leave the team for lapses (1 SA and 1 PA in the last 1 year), feedback on partners and favoured resources is routinely dismissed or minimised, and leadership avoids examining its own role in the current state of the team. Without genuine engagement with these issues and concrete changes in behaviour, particularly at the leadership level, the existing environment is unlikely to improve.

Don’t join this team unless you’re willing to work 16 hours a day 7 days a week.

Idk about the team. I worked with Ravi & his original team a decade back as a junior, and that was the most amazing experience. I've since moved to a different country but always try and stay in touch with him and some of the team members. Ravi is the best person to work for and genuinely the nicest guy. He's super commercial and technically top notch.

It is simply incorrect to portray CAM as a “frying pan.” CAM is demanding, but it is also very clear about what it expects and whom it backs. In this case, the problem has not been the firm but this team. Internally, it has long been evident that this group was misaligned, difficult to integrate, and not delivering the value expected of a corporate team at CAM's standards.The narrative of them being “poached” is convenient but not convincing. The more straightforward explanation and one that most people inside CAM would acknowledge without hesitation is that the team never earned strategic relevance within the corporate practice. CAM has multiple corporate teams that are high‑performing, tightly run, and deeply valued. This team was not one of them. The ease of their exit is the clearest indicator. When a partner or team that CAM genuinely values attempts to leave, the firm does not make the process smooth. CAM is known for being extremely firm and protective in those situations. The fact that this transition is happening without resistance tells you everything about how the organisation viewed the team’s contribution.

This reads less like an assessment and more like an attempt to rationalise an exit. The team comprises experienced and competent lawyers with established client relationships and a credible body of work. Whether they were the right institutional fit for CAM is a different question altogether.

Treating the manner in which an exit is being handled as conclusive evidence of a team’s value is a considerable leap. Departures are influenced by multiple commercial and institutional considerations, most of which are not visible externally.

CAM undoubtedly has several excellent corporate teams. That does not require diminishing the credentials of lawyers who choose to leave it.

The point was not about lawyer competence at all. It was about something far more basic i.e., this team was not desirable within CAM. Their client base was thin, their book was shallow, and they never managed to align with CAM’s culture or collaborate in a way that mattered. For a firm like CAM, that makes the decision straightforward. From CAM’s standpoint, keeping a team that does not integrate, creates more risk than value. A clean, controversy‑free exit is simply the commercially rational move by CAM. But interesting that your takeaway was that the comment was about competency.

The point is spot‑on, and honestly the simple truth is this team never managed to built any real relevance inside CAM. In a place like CAM, that becomes obvious very quickly and let’s be blunt, when a firm actually values a team, the firm digs in and fights to keep such a team Here, there is no real pushback, no real noise, nothing. A smooth exit at CAM is basically a verdict on what this team is worth (point to be noted by the new employer). In my view, CAM is a demanding place but is equally predictable. It backs people who deliver. This team didn’t, and that’s really all there is to it.

Let’s not romanticise the past. Ashwath and Shishir were good lawyers, but CAM’s dominance never depended on them, and it certainly doesn’t depend on finding their equivalents. That entire framing is outdated.CAM doesn’t need to replace individuals. People leave. Titles shift. Business cards change.

CAM remains the institution everyone else is still trying to catch up to.The so‑called void exists only in the imagination of those who think firms rise and fall on the shoulders of a couple of personalities. CAM’s market position didn’t wobble for a single quarter after they left. Not one practice area lost Tier 1 status. Not one competitor suddenly became relevant because of these individual moves. If anything, their departure proved the point CAM is built so well that even its strongest alumni can leave without leaving a dent.That’s what an institution looks like. That’s why CAM stays number one. And that’s why the question of equivalents is irrelevant.

PR team asli id se aao. Stay number one because of the relation to one number. That's it. Remove that from the equation and then see how the house tumbles. If the gen Z protest has taught us one thing, it's that rotting institutions have had their hey days. The ones that will survive are the ones that take their head out of the sand and face the winds of change. Fiefdoms are over. Merit and entrepreneurship is the new mantra.

Realise this. Accept this.

Don't we all know about this client and how no associate wants to do the work because it is a waste of time and completely mind numbing work. How associates who were hired to do this client's work have left saying they rather work in a tier 2 firm than do such degrading work. How 'massive' is a big overstatement as the revenue from this client would not make even 10% of a SP's target.

Yes. What underlying factors or dynamics are causing this team/specific team members to attract such harsh, hostile, or derogatory commentary from various quarters? What might this indicate about broader perceptions of this team? It appears that the senior members of this team are not taking care of, or they don't care about, the grievances of associates. This is impacting the overall reputation of this team. Today it is impacting CAM's culture which is being spoilt. Tomorrow it will be the other firm where they are moving. Hope for all these tier 1 firms, it is worth hiring such teams even with their own firm culture and reputation at stake.

This is not right. The partners were not happy with their work and therefore as part of routine clean up, they were asked to leave. Apparently the partners in this team are very just and operate based only on merits of the person. At the time of hiring a person it is difficult to ascertain the quality of associate, however after hiring as soon as they realise the potential of any associate (mainly lack thereof), they ask the associate to leave especially because it is not easy to train associates in a high volume 16 hrs a day 7 day week job.

Fair enough but asking anyone to leave without giving sufficient time to settle and perform is harsh. even best of associates need sometime to settle. In the same team, there are partners who had joined as an associate (and performed badly initially) but were given time to perform and that paid off for Ravindra. It is a sad reality that no one wants to invest time in associate development. Also this team needs to acknowledge that there are some 4-5 partners all of whom have a different style of working and therefore it is understandable if an associate needs even more time to settle down and start performing as per the individual standard of each of these partners. I hope Ravindra and CAM are taking note of this specific comment because all these tier 1 firm boast of robust associate development programme but the ground reality is that no one wants to or has time to do this.

In your firm do you not have any performance parameters based on which associates are rated at the end of a FY. Even if the firm doesn't have, as a partner and as a manager you should have some performance parameters in mind which you should convey to associates fairly in advance so that they know the expectation. Problem is sometimes associate is judged on ad-hoc basis, depending upon convenience and whims and fancies of the partners.

The PAs in this team leave because the existing partners are surviving on existing book and there is no scope of growth. In last 4 years, at least 7-8 PA level and 5-6 SA level people have left the team. Just facts for anyone arrive at conclusion and these facts can be easily confirmed.

Is there a basis for this claim? If he is retiring soon it will be useful to know for juniors/laterals hoping/planning to join him thinking they will get to work with him. Frankly associates may not join this team but for Ravi's stellar reputation. Other partners are mostly not very well known.

Isn't it just self serving for partners to spread such rumours? very unprofessional. Until he announces it himself (even if he has indicated it to any of them, which I am sure is in confidence), they should not be spreading this rumour. Really shows lack of character and integrity. It is certainly unnerving for clients, all of whom are giving work purely because of Ravi.

Not really. If the team has that much work it is not associate's fault. But yes if she/he feels she/he doesn't want to do that much work, joining this team was wrong. One should always do research before joining a team and decide based on your priorities. While it is not fully possible to determine how the people in the team are, figuring out that this team's expectation is work 24x7, is not difficult

Working at CAM for close to 9 years now and it is depressing to see the image of the firm getting tarnished because of the way people have commented on this thread. I thought (and did explain to people who were planning to apply to the firm) that this is not the culture of the firm and this must be some antagonized junior associate writing all this. However, this comment from someone senior (I think it is a fair assumption) is not helping. If you can use the word BS on public forum I am not sure if you even know how to deal with a team (let alone be a leader). Please refrain from writing such comments and using such language as it not only impacts your team (and now other comments appear to be fair) but also the reputation of the firm in the market. Firm also has enough leadership initiatives, try and benefit from them. It is unfair if reputation of one team has adverse impact on us as a firm.

This comment sums up part of the leadership in this team extremely accurately. The seniors in this team are not leaders - they are simply older individuals who feel entitled to behave with and treat juniors however they wish and as per their whims and fancies. Some end up getting the short end of the stick (which are the antagonised juniors you refer to). Some are affected by it only positively (the “favourites” which are being referred to across this thread). I’m sure there performance is linked to this in some strange way. But there are definitely people who don’t do much except delegate and are perceived as high performers. Also the difference in treatment from partners is so stark that it becomes unjustifiable. You are absolutely correct in saying that this is not the culture of the firm. ▮▮▮ Seniors quite literally talk about the juniors in this team like they are inanimate objects (“why don’t you USE xyz for this transaction” and not “why don’t you take the assistance of XYZ”). Unfortunately, there are a few rotten apples in this team who are really well positioned and this destroys the environment for the rest of us. There are definitely some wonderful seniors in the team and there is a lot to learn from them. But there are some people which manage to take away so much from those positive experiences and really ruin the entire experience because of their unchecked behaviours. Really hoping that some solution is figured out by the leadership.

Understood. But see nothing will change by posting here, I am sure Ravi is already aware of this thread and the issues in his team. As someone has rightly pointed out, this is your career - so play your cards well and figure out if you will be better off (or not) by getting out of this team.