Rohit Das, who was re-elected as managing partner in January 2011 after co-founding the firm in 2008, says he is not content for PXV to remain mid-market and mid-size. “We’re very aggressive and see ourselves in the top bracket in the next five years. And in terms of the size also we do see reaching 100 by five years.”

Das started RDA Legal, as it was then called, after spending less than two years with Amarchand Mangaldas, having graduated from NUJS Kolkata in 2006. The first office was Kolkata, a city, he says, where he had the right amount of support and contacts necessary to start a new firm. This also gave a leg up to the second office only eight months later in Bangalore.

The firm underwent a restructuring to incorporate three new equity partners and rechristened to PXV last year.

PXV, short for Mount Everest’s original name Peak 15, is reflective of the firm’s ideologies, explains Das: hard work and dedication can lead them to the pinnacle of the legal profession.

The seven equity partners are on a pure lockstep with a common profit pool alongside two non-equity salaried partners.

“From last year we’re in the lockstep, we’re quite aggressive – we don’t want a highly leveraged firm in terms of associates but we want a highly leveraged firm in terms or partners,” says partner Deepto Roy, emphasising a balance between aggressive lateral hiring and organic growth. “Our salaries may not be as competitive as that of the big law firms [so we convince laterals] of the growth potential we see in the firm and ensure that they feel a part of it.”

Structurally forward looking

Besides an electoral method of selecting the managing partner every two years by equity partners, PXV has administrative sub-sections headed by each partner. An executive committee looks into various managerial responsibilities.

“One of things we’re putting in place is an executive committee of a smaller sub-set of partners taking on the firm’s responsibility,” explains Roy. “There are partners in charge of HR, knowledge, ethics and conflicts, business development, accounts and finance.”

Das adds that the firm’s management is closely knit and centralised with standardised practice across offices but trust still remains the cornerstone of understanding among partners.

And although all PXV partners are currently from NUJS Kolkata, Das says that is quite coincidental and the firm does not hold any institutional bias.

A part of PXV’s expansion strategy now is to take on specialists to expand in given practice areas while developing other important niche practices such as competition law and intellectual property in-house.

“Just recently we have inducted a consultant who is a UK qualified lawyer,” Das tells Legally India. “We are consulting her to develop a pharmaceutical practice - she’s an ex-Allen & Overy and has a lot of experience in-house as a lawyer working for pharma companies.”

M&As account for 45-50 per cent of the firm’s revenues followed by litigation, which contributes 30 per cent, and the rest that comes from other developing areas, according to Das. “General corporate work is bread and butter stuff for us.”

After four offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata, PXV is planning to open a fifth office by the end of this year in Ahmedabad, which according to Das is a growing centre of commerce where a lot of FDIs and investments have taken place.

Legally India’s law firm profiles are a new series where we look behind the scenes of Indian law firms and the way they work and play. All profiles are free of charge and independently written by Legally India’s editorial team.