They both are equal rivals in their own might. Hopefully these events will provide a reality check to Kakkar madam who is known to email harshly worded emails to associates - the only difference is that Gen Z is fearless in calling out BS

Better late than never.

Moderator please publish this

I am writing this as a person who knows the partner and 2 of the juniors mentioned in the email and many others in the CC.

1. With regards to the mistake. People make mistakes and that is why things are checked again and again in a law firm when the stakes are high. And the stakes are high when disclosures are made to a regulator. In the current case, the responsibility lies both with the juniors and the partner leading the matter. While i don't expect AK (or her equivalent) in other firms to cross check every part of the data (and market share calculations can be extensive), the hands-on partner must have had checked this. While mistakes must be addressed, and culprits must be rebuked, it must not be turned in a circus with audience, which AK has done in this email. That is unprofessional. At best, the entire team should have got the load-down.

2. With regards the attitude approach - First i really appreciate AK addressing the issue. toxic behaviour not only damages overall moral, it also causes good resources to leave and makes training juniors harder. People who acts like God's gift to mankind in a team are largely the ones who are very problematic. Having said that, the feedback should not have gone out like this. As AK says, this should not be like a cinema where she is playing for the crowd. While it is important that the team knows that toxic members are dealt with, AK could have word with the members privately and then informed the team that the issue has been addressed, and if specific examples persist to privately bring them up with her and if necessary, the perpetrator. This is not to say that AK had not spoken to these guys earlier in a private conversation. If she did and the attitude didn't change, it was time to let these people go. That would be the professional way. While she stood up to bullying - she did it in a way which would make bullies around the world swell with pride. That's the sad part here.

Anyways, this will die down, and I hope AK continues to have the teams back, but in a more nuanced fashion. I hope folks like the people mentioned in the email learn their lessons.

This entire thing has left a rather disgusting taste in one's mouth. There's a rule that says you have to treat fellow advocates with respect and courtesy. There is another rule that says an advocate cannot act in a manner that brings disrepute to the profession in general. There is cause. I will be writing to the Bar Council. Hope they do something. If they don't do something in a month I will follow up via writ if I am still disgusted by then.

"And no one guillotines captains of ships, you’ve mixed up your metaphors."

Yes they do. When you on sea and you piss off the crew and lose their confidence. They don't guillotine you, but they do make you walk a plank. It is clear that a partnership is the only ship you've ever served on.

So calling out bad behaviour / passive aggression / poor work quality is "berating" in your world, is it so my friend?

In any profession, if you can't deliver good work, then you either need to buck up or leave.

Its so easy to label things as toxic, without actually understanding or being privy to facts.

There is NO justification for sharing it - whoever shared it has scarred the people more than the email would've ever did. Period.

No one is indispensable - however, that doesn't give anyone a free pass to harass people or deliver poor quality work.

GenZ needs to stop being touchy about everything said and done which doesn't align with their expectations.

The reason why people shared it with others is not to gossip or threaten the career of these individuals but to showcase the reality of berating happening in a law firm. And CAM really for your sake please improve yourself. CAM has seen such a negative image in law schools and other law firms. Don't think that you or your way of work is not irreplaceable. It is. Foreign law firms, unemployed CAs, AI and what not!

You couldn't have said it better! Your work can be okay and it can be improved, but you're attitude has to be at the right place. Juniors these days walk in with a sense of entitlement. Its important to be humble to grow in life.

She stood for her team and called out the persons attitude, which IMHO is rare these days.

How easy it is to pass judgements, because you're not under fire, right? Someone else is.

Grow up world, and get a life. Get your houses in order (personal and professional) before you get to judge someone else.

As a partner, what she did is RIGHT, and those who are not privy to the facts, stay away. This should be the least of your concerns.

NO ONE ever called out the person who leaked a confidential email, which is meant only for the team. Its called a team for a reason. This is a massive trust issue. And THAT should have been the concern. If the person can't keep a team email confidential, how are they to be trusted with work? Or otherwise?

Worse shit happens in other places and people bury it 10 feet deep. Or ignore it. And here you are finding fault with a partner who called out juniors for their unprofessionalism and attitude. If you're telling me you've never been yelled at by a colleague, senior, or client, you're fooling yourself and everyone else.

I can name partners who are toxic on the inside, and make life miserable for their team, but are all decked up and smiles on the outside. I've worked with someone who screams their heart out and abuses you for no real reason, just to show who the boss is.

If you're touchy about criticism and feedbacks, sorry friends, please stay away from the professional circles.

If any of you even cared about the persons named in the email, their mental peace, wellbeing, career and life in general, you wouldn't be circulating the email, or reading it, or letting your tongue loose.

SHAME ON YOU ALL.

There are a number of lessons for everyone here. Law firm partners need to learn how to give feedback. Gen Z needs to know that real law firm life isn’t an episode of Suits. It’s hard work and long hours.

Kakkar is well known for her unapologetic rudeness in the legal and client community. Only a bully knows another bully so well. Building a name in the field doesn’t give one a free pass to butcher your team mates publicly.

No one is a saint in this scenario.

those who think these kids will be unemployable are mistaken. for sure, they will struggle for a few months or even 1 year to get over this....but it will soon be forgotten in the industry and life will go on. the fact is that they have a couple of years of PQE under their belt in a tier 1 firm and have learnt some skills on the job. a few years ago, another competition lawyer from a tier 1 firm got fired during the me2 campaign on several serious charges of sexual harassment. within a few months, he was hired by another tier 1 firm. if these kids can't find another decent job in the law firm industry, it will reflect very poorly on the moral standards of the industry.

Did you just compare a CAM partner to Ratan Tata? Ded. 💀

I do not know how big the competition practice at CAM is but pretty sure that the partner does not have 7.5 lakh people employed in the team. Sure, your argument works for Ratan Tata but stop giving ridiculous examples.

Anyone who is chattering away over here about what a badass he is, and how Tier 1 firms have been clamouring to have him, but he rejected them, and it’s as good as a bird shitting on him is full of the selfsame bird-poop lol. Go on buddy. Carry on living this noble life where you keep rejecting the poor Tier 1 firms which are dying to have you haha.

No question of dropping any attitude. They’re lucky to have these positions, period. They pay well, and provide a defined career path. People like AK hire staff to produce quality output, not do whatever they like and then leave it to the boss to sort it out, while copping an attitude. And after this disaster they’ll be lucky to find work anywhere to be honest. Some of these guys realise this, as one of the named associates has already called out the guy who made it viral (Pandey). Basically he says everyone (whether on one side of the debate or the other) is having their fun at his expense and that of the other associates, and it’s not what he expects of his colleagues at the bar.

Partners don’t go around LI at all. A partners at AKs level is supposed to either execute or bring in ₹7 to 10 Crores worth of business a year. You’re poorly informed if you think they’re supposed to be checking every document that goes out. They have Partners UNDER them who have PAs under them who do all that.

Personally so far I had heard only good things about the partner being supportive and not being toxic. So can’t judge on the face of it. There are lot of underlying issues and reasons for such an email. Given the attitude of the associate, no wonder why he was reprimanded this way (referring to his Instagram and twitter posts)

All of that is fine, but you're deluded if you think a law firm partner is on the same level as a CEO or a ship's captain lmao. Reminds me of my delusional former boss who'd keep comparing corporate lawyers to doctors, as if we were doing anything but making life a little worse for everyone involved.

This partner in question is paid an insane amount of money to send out documents that reflect "excellence and value", despite which she literally didn't bother to check the documents and the math that went out. She IS the lower management you talk of. Partners going around LI pretending to be entrepreneurs is hilarious. Y'all are wageslaves like the rest of us, act like it.

Easier said than done. There’s no conclusive evidence pointing to the fact that the people being berated in the email have leaked the email, but they would invariably end up bearing the brunt of this in some way. Its a vicious circle. The cost of speaking up is too high, but so is the cost of not speaking up.

So much nonsense in this post. The CEO of a company doesn’t go around checking every small job that a mechanic does. He or she hires good people and trusts them to get on with the job, under the supervision of lower management. If they can’t do their work properly, said hires are no longer employed. Same is here. Business is about survival and survival is earned by continued excellence and value provided to the customer. Not phoning it in and mouthing off to your bosses, only to collect an cheque at the end of the month. And no one guillotines captains of ships, you’ve mixed up your metaphors.

Clearly, yes, they should be held responsible for shoddy work. But in this manner? With the world copied? You knownofnthe Chinese loan app scams? Exact same behaviour, people take loans and fail to repay back on time- these apps then access your contact list and and name and shame you. Really don't know how avaantikaas behaviour is any different here.

As a junior lawyer I always understood the mission: Do the work without mistakes, and respect your seniors. If you make a mistake (which you will, invariably), say sorry, be humble, and don’t do it again. As a (relatively) senior lawyer, I expect the same from my juniors. I hire them, so I don’t have to do each and every thing myself. That’s why I’m sharing my income with them. If I DO have to review all work output, then the junior is useless, and must be told what he is doing wrong. If he still doesn’t listen, he must leave. What else can I say?

If Avaantika has to review everything leaving her desk a thousand times over, she needn’t hire these well paid idiots to mess things up, she could do the work herself. By extension, Narayana Murthy also should check each programmers work before it leaves INFY. You are hired to do a job, well, and without complaint. If you don’t like it, if you can’t do it, leave. This is not the profession for you.

The associates made a mistake. Others copied on the email were responsible for supervising and correcting them. On behaviour. On work product. The reprimand was for them too.it was an internal email for her team. It wasn’t meant for our eyes. Now, people hire staff to do the work. Not to be rude, and tell the seniormost partner that they should check the work before it goes out. If that’s the work product, such juniors should certainly be dismissed. No one pays good, hard earned money for crap work and bad attitude.

People have employees to do the work for them. If they have to check and recheck everything the employee does, then the employee is useless. In this case, instead of firing, she has issued a reprimand internally, within her team. Some of the people copied on the email are superiors of the individuals concerned and mentioned. It will be their duty to further correct and properly manage them. She has not written this email as though to speak to the whole world. That has been done by whomever chose to leak it. I can show you, that the said leak has had a terrible impact on at least one of the boys mentioned. What was to be an internal course correction to be taken on board, and the reprimand forgotten by Monday, has become public shaming. https://x.com/Svyamm/status/1770694354044330183?s=20

Buddy, the partners responsibility is to manage the team and get engagements, not check each outgoing piece of work. If that had to be done, they’d never grow their business. Associates, senior associates, principal associates and Partners all come below the head of practice, which Kakkar is. You might as well say Ratan Tata should have checked every TCS deliverable himself. These guys, especially the most senior amongst them, seem to have screwed up big time.

Boss, no one who has had employees appreciates a smartass who doesn’t deliver the goods and has a bad attitude. Don’t want to work? Don’t. Think you’re smarter than everyone else? Open your own shop. Don’t stink up the team at somebody else’s law firm. And whoever leaked this certainly didn’t do these kids a favour. Avaantika Kakkar obviously has a huge book, and will be just fine. These kids are just starting their careers and will become unemployable. See what Svyam (one of the boys mentioned) has written on the Twitter Feed of the guy who posted the leaked email:-

https://x.com/Svyamm/status/1770694354044330183?s=20

Why do you feel so many layers of review will be required? You understand it costs money right? Firms like CAM are trying to be more efficient, clients want lower billing. A3 can’t get facts and figures right?! Everything has to be checked with a magnifying glass 🤦

Who are you devta/devi

You would not go very far with that attitude

If you get paid for work know your place and do it

If you are an associate in a T1 firm and expect recognition etc you are a fool

Just do your work keeping your head down you make partner in 10 years hopefully

If you want to be the star overnight go open your own law firm

While you are working for a partner your job is to make that partner successful or you are out

Always remember that there are others eagerly waiting to take your place

Don’t delude yourself

None of this is rocket science, it just requires diligence- if you don’t have that go find another profession 😄

Genuinely curious: what is the partner's duty then if not even to check if the numbers are correct or not?

If a ship sinks, it is the captain who gets guillotined first. Their literal responsibility is for the team. That is their primary job description. You cannot reap all the benefits and externalise the costs.

So bad work, deserves, an even worse email? Irony is she writes about this rajat chap being a bully, when her own email, is nothing short of bullying and shaming. Don't blame the juniors, when the senior sets such examples. Cyril bhai, no lessons learnt? Or is the lesson that, kuch nahi hoga, nobody gives a shit? The world is changing, in a few years time, some kid, who's politically connected, would come out and over regulate you, just cos, he was in the shoes of these kids, at some point.

Moral(s) of the story:

1. Associates, need to get better. Both on the work front and behaviour front. While mordern- non-hierarchical structures and behaviour is good, there's sound value and reason in age old customs and practices.

2. Partners and their immediate reports (counsels/PAs), sure as hell, need to invest in training associates and no, this doesn't mean packing them off to do theoretical KM/CLE/leadership sessions.

3. Partners and other senior resources, managing teams and associates, should be told categorically, that bad behaviour with associates, is not ACCEPTABLE. Bad work? Just say bad work, once, twice and thrice and then be done with the associate. Don't shit over them - gets you nothing, and sure as hell, won't get them to work better.

4. Reverse reviews (juniors to seniors), should really be explored. Develop a conversation culture, where a senior is able to say bad work and the junior gets to say why and what they think the senior could have done better to help them do better work.

5. Resources with consistently bad feedback on behaviour (terror banda/Bandi hai), should almost invariably, never be made partner- unless they have a huge damn book, and are willing to service their own book with them tripling up as associates, Partners and PAs.

6. Associates, should buck up. Realise that this is not a game. Their work, affects their seniors reputation. Their health and life, even potentially.

7. Law firm management /top leadership should stop acting as if they don't read these comments and pick up suggestions, which seem remotely sensible. Instead of just playing the let it die down game and then eventually, this repeats all over again.

Law is a tough business

From time to time a partner will have to rely on juniors

Juniors in firms like CAM are well paid for a reason

If they can’t do their part appropriately they should be fired

Many times seniors find it hard to fire people and out of misplaced compassion end up berating them instead as a punishment

It never work

Just fire the damn guy with a smile instead- berating won’t change him

What makes you think or even assume he would leak that email despite being at the firm himself? Easy to jump to such conclusions on a gossip platform - right?? There are multiple other associates marked on the thread, some of which have no remarks on themselves - they could have very well leaked it. If he/the other two subjects leaked it - they would have redacted their own names ffs. This has clearly been leaked because some other associate wanted to mock the ones marked/ show to a friend and then it spread like a wildfire. Stop further berating the subjects here ffs

If my younger sibling will be incompetent in serious work, i will support the partner. Its client work and a duty to the client. Imagine a doctor’s staff goofs up a patient’s treatment, how will people react? When the work concerns third parties, greater caution and duty is required.

You do realise that Nobel Prize winners can also be, for example, terrible human beings? (https://www.vice.com/en/article/kb4vam/einstein-was-a-genius-at-mistreating-his-wives)

Nobody's talent, if so, gives them a free reign to treat other people like shit.

Heard CAM was a bad place to work but she seems to have spent most of her time at Khaitan before jumping ship to become Competition head at CAM. Here I thought Khaitan had the nicer Partners in general. Is it just bad everywhere? A very clueless and disillusioned A2 wrote this. Responses welcome.

You have to appreciate that if the partner has to check everything personally (including basic facts and figures) there is no reason to pay 18 lakh per year to A0 associates or 24 lakhs to A1s

juniors need to be reliable and go find another job, this holds true even where people are paid 25k per month, but especially if you are paid the best salary in the country

Hope this clarifies

I totally agree. But this is a practice which is prevelant throughout the industry. They treat people like shit. Incompetent people who pretend to work (more than actually working), have zero inputs (other than beautification changes), suck-up max to the boss, are given promotions and big bonuses. The people who actually do good work but don't show off enough are subjected to taunts, ridicule and personal comments (which are highly problematic and unprofessional in nature). That makes people quit the industry and there is huge vacancy of good talent. In the end they have to rely on junior associates for work and all of the incompetent people just pass on the buck, till it reaches the person who can no longer pass the buck. Entire system is a scam. One day it will all come crashing down and burn.

Ohh really? When did Jiggles become a NLU? Last I checked Sonipat has only one NLU. TWO OUT OF THE THREE MAHARATHIS are from Jindal Global Law School, Sonipat.

And you think NLU people are special? Ms. Avantika Kakkar joined a prestigious law school at a time when there were only three NLUs out of which two just opened their shops, thus presuming did not have a campus of their own.

Please wake up to the reality! there is vasr horizon beyond NLU where competence and success is not based on or limited to your NLU degree! it's to ro move forward from your CLAT days and gloating on success from the past.

by way of full disclosure, I'm not from an NLU but still very successful!!

Understand and agree, while some parts of the email are excessive, it was mostly meant to be an internal email/ discussion within the team to deal with a systemic attitude issue. Moreover, there is consistent lessening of work ethic in the newer associates as well as serious attitude issues and sense of entitlement. Law and the profession is demanding and you have to accept it.

Market share data is pretty critical to the filing.

Any team can't and shouldn't rely on an associate to prepare it and finalise it. A senior level lawyer must must check the data no matter how cumbersome they find it.

If it's that important you must give it that much importance.

In my associate days even though I was excellent with handling data and maths my seniors never let out any work product out without running by the data once. At least once. They would simply ask for the excel sheet, check my calculations and the source of data (client, target or open source).

Understood AK being the practice head won't have had the time to check but what about the second rung partners/ PAs/ SAs. (Apparently the team has a practice of not hiring mid level associates/ SAs. That's such a stupid move. It will definitely cost you more in longer term.)

Calculation are done by lawyers and rechecked by lawyers even if companies provide it. Also, in some situations your client won't be privy to all the data due to confidentiality so the lawyers collate the data and do the calculation.

It's a simple excel sheet job but prone to mistakes.

Always a good practice to keep the calculation in Excel sheet and have a senior cross check the data along with the formulas and calculation.

I wonder why no mid level associate/ SA/ PA cross checked the data and checked the calculation. It's not rocket science but has to be done meticulously because it's easy to make silly mistakes.

You call this email polite? Had it only been to point out a mistake, then that could still have been understandable if not acceptable. However, she clearly refers to their behaviour and nature, about which she could have had a private discussion with each of them individually, instead of doing this. She only did this to vent, and that's not professional. The wording also makes it clear that she has spoken to one of them, but not the others. It is a pity that law firms don't teach their partners about how to deal with a team.

It is exactly this sort of attitude that makes top tier corporate law firms so toxic. Such toxicity cannot and should not be justified in any manner. Absolutely unprofessional and I would describe AK in her own words as an "INCOMEPETENT" leader. I guess if she knew her email was going viral, she would have asked one of these junior associates she likes to humiliate to run a spell check on it before sending it out.

Instant karma..She tried to publicly humiliate her juniors and ended up getting a taste of her own medicine.

lol classic rookie associate behaviour (I mean the commenter who claimed cast remark) - Commenting before reading the entire thing properly.

Based on the logic of all the other rookie associates, who are downvoting anything in favour of AK, it should LegallyIndia's fault that such a false comment (i.e., the comment claiming caste remark) was even allowed to be published.

PS - this email, in my opinion, is the least toxic thing that any boss could ever say to their junior. Out of all the toxic things that could have been highlighted about the law firm life, this hardly deserves to be controversial. What else do you expect to hear if you not only behave unprofessionally but also fuck up the work product?

PPS - READ, because when we READ, we REMEMBER!

Professional incompetence is not an excuse to disrespect people and treat them badly. Yes, the juniors need to take accountability for their mistakes but so does the partner. At the end of the day, the partner is responsible for the team no matter whose mistake it was. If the associates are not working as per your expectations, then you can give them feedback and train them or fire them. There is absolutely no need to call them names.

I'm a victim of being harrassed, tortured and bullied by the funds trio. I have all evidence with me. I have recording of conversations, screenshots of emails of worst being written to me marking the entire team on purpose. I have evidence of bonus being cut vaguely and promotion being stopped.

Yet, having all this evidence with me ,I know what the consequences are if I raise my voice. Please let's not forget viral AZB resignation letter.

Change will begin if Avantika gets fired for her behaviour. There the onus of being held accountable for your actions will start and all partners in firms will fear putting their juniors through this.

If you are going to judge Avantika Kakkar based on her publication, then you are only screaming out your naivety. Go into the Competition Law circle and ask about her. She has been at the forefront of Competition Law in India. She is at the pinnacle of the field and her name comes with an unmatched reputation. Your parameters are misplaced and therefore understandably so, support for the shroudy behaviour of the associates is being made. Her choice of words may be harsh, perhaps unprofessional, but that does not takes away the unprofessional conduct of the associates. They should be held responsible.

I have gotten offers from tier 1s and rejected because i got better opportunities. nobody is "lucky" to be working at CAM. if someone from a top tier NLU has to feel lucky to get a job in capital markets at CAM then surely i should feel lucky that no bird shat on me today. What tragedy that people think like this man.