Three dual-qualified lawyers, who set up their own London law firm Candey Parker Solicitors and Advocates a year ago with with four other lawyers and a chartered accountant, launched an India practice on Friday with a new office in the heart of London’s prestigious City financial district.
Abhijit Khandeparker, Ravindra Kumar and Parvez Khan had set up the practice as directors in a limited liability company in April 2011, predominantly targeting Indian corporates on commercial advice and transactions.
Khandeparker, a 2002 Goa University LLB graduate who obtained a masters in business laws (MBL) from NLSIU Bangalore in 2004, was a senior associate at London commercial firm Morgan Walker, which went into liquidation in 2011.
Kumar, a 2001 CLC Delhi University alumnus, specialised in international arbitration and worked as an attorney in the India practice group at the London office of US-headquartered firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw & Pittman, after stints at a number of Mumbai firms and Singhania & Co in London.
Khan practised with a number of independent advocates in Mumbai and later qualified in England and Wales before setting up Candey Parker.
They said that after one year of functioning as an English practice mostly advising Indian banks in the UK, they moved into a new 1,200 square foot office on Friday (12 April) in Ludgate Circus – an address opposite the office of 4,000-lawyer global firm Baker & McKenzie and in the heart of the UK capital’s financial district, the City of London.
Coinciding with their new office the directors are now also formally launching the India practice group.
Dividing attentions
Around three quarters of Candey Parker’s revenues were generated from Indian corporates, whom they primarily advised on English law, but they hoped to also service a greater number UK and European clients on Indian law going forward.
English practice head Khandeparker said: “There is a big Indian community in London and in the UK. The Indian community would always have the comfort of dealing with Indian lawyers. We are offering the same quality of service at a better price […] and the clients get what they want.”
India practice head Kumar told Legally India that he intended to rely mostly on referrals from India, and would look to set up offices in Mumbai and Delhi in the coming months.
Be there, or square
“The City, in London, is within the Square Mile. If [a firm is] based somewhere outside that [square mile], the client does not see you as a serious city practice,” remarked Khandeparker.
Kumar said that Singhania & Co, the only other Indian law firm catering to Indian corporates in the UK, was situated outside the city closer to Westminster.
However, the location added considerably to overheads that also include indemnity insurance, local council rates, taxes, and amenities, as well as the salaries of nine attorneys and one chartered accountant.
Profits are shared between the founders as proportionate to the revenues they individually bring in. “Presently, the profit division is based on a carve-out where we’ve got allocation for the person who refers the work, the partner who supervises the work, the associates who work on the appointment, and expenses of the firm,” explained Khandeparker.
Photo by Gavin
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If you knew about the complicated racial history of the term, it was poor judgment to use it so casually, for a simple headline. If you are not aware of the complicated racial history of the term it calls into question your knowledge of the subcontinent.
It would have been appropriate, for instance, to ask why the firm name has been Anglicized in such a manner to disguise the Indian heritage of at least one of the founders. Are they actually ashamed of their heritage? Are they using this as a marketing approach? Those are some legitimate questions a journalist could ask.
First of all, if any offence was perceived or caused, I certainly did not intend it and deeply regret it.
The headline was actually not intended to make any reference to race at all, and indeed I don't know if that is the most common modern-day understanding of the term anymore?
We have used Anglo-Indian several times in the past when speaking about best friendships between English and Indian firms, for example. And the first dictionary definition (www.thefreedictionary.com/Anglo-Indian) states "Of, relating to, or between England and India", though maybe that was written by a Britisher trying to sanitise history.
Similarly, US and London firms are often referred to in the trade as Anglo-Saxon firms, without anyone thinking of ethnicity or Angles or Saxons.
I was under the impression that in nowaday's business and legal world, both Anglo and Indian, Anglo-Indian has ceased being such a loaded term.
I meant to provide a shorthand to the founders' qualifications in law being both English (and Welsh) and Indian. Have now added the world "qualified" to the headline to clarify that, if there was any doubt.
Would be interested on others' views of acceptability of the phras though, and, if it is not acceptable, to suggest some usable and descriptive alternatives. Indo-Anglian, anyone?
In terms of the name of the firm, not sure if it's fair to grill anyone too much, in light of some of the law firm names that are around at the moment.
Is a law firm adopting Latin or Greek or Sanskrit or English name any indication of the founders' mindset, just a personal preference or possibly merely a lack of imagination?
Best wishes,
Kian
The firm name is a legitimate area of inquiry. We're not asking Archer and Angel why they chose a whacky name. Candey Parker is clearly an anglicized version of Abhijit Khandeparker's name. The name suggests two individuals, and does not conjure an India association. Why the sleight of hand? Shivaji would be aghast to see a son of the soil hiding his heritage behind this deceptive letterhead. Maybe Khandeparker's not Marathi, but you get my point. Changing one's name is a lot different than going with AMSS or ALMT. It's at least worth asking them why they did it.
You should note that there is a constitutionally mandated seat in parliament for an Anglo Indian, for a certain period of time. So the term has a definite racial connotation that is recognized legally in India, even if not by Legally India.
Anyway, this is more to remind you that you should be vigilant with potentially racially active terms, and think thrice before you deploy them where they are not absolutely necessary.
I'm totally with you man! Kian is becoming an apology expert it seems.
As it is the quality of some of the articles is appalling. I can divide the stuff that appears on LI into the following categories
1. Utterly Irrelevant (like this one which is dug out from god-knows where)
2. Absolute lackey-ing (like most of the articles about AMSS)
3. NLUWorshipping (at the cost of other universities)
4. Poorly disguised plagiarism (from B&B)
5. Horrible Headlining (like this one or the one abt the Adanis)
Way to go kian!
1. Kian's use of the term Anglo-Indian in this context
2. A person changing his name from Khandeparker to Candey Parker
3. A firm boasting that it bought an office opposite a firm with 4,000 lawyers
These 3 have already achieved more than you ever will. Think about how firms like ALMT started out in London and are now a 100 lawyer firm.
Who cares about the name? It's better than calling it after a founder and has a nice ring to it....
Good story. I personally want to read about these firms too and not just about the biggies...
Get a life guys...
ALMT has 100+ lawyers?
What's wrong with naming a firm after the founders? Its surely better than names like Lex This or Lex That or Argo or Juris this or Juris That! Indians really have horrible name syndrome.
But this dude's shame in his own name is weird!!
It's like saying Lex Argo Juris etc. founders are ashamed of their name.
Prachi had actually asked Khandeparker about whether the firm was loosely named after him, but he said it wasn't his choice but the other directors that picked it because that they liked it.
I don't know, maybe it's an inside joke, but I have to say I quite like it as far as invented law firm names go, and it's certainly memorable.
It doesn't take a grad student in identities studies to point out that the firm partners apparently feel there is a business advantage in trading under invented English sounding names than in using their own. The idea of the other partners imploring Abhijit Khandeparker to trade under a cartoon simile of his name beggars belief.
There are bigger stories to note, of course. But one can make a good case that the firm's artificial name, the Indian founders willingness to hide their heritage, the bragging about locating in a "recognized" area, all show a minority group not confident enough to succeed on its own terms. That's the story here, not that a couple of LLLms with little big firm experience are striking out on their own. That we see every day.
D&C, sorry, no, unless you are running the Daily Mail or Saamana, that is not the story here, though you certainly made a good case of what happens when combining pop psychology with a selective reading of a story.
If you wanted to examine whether there is a business advantage to trade under an English brand from a prestigious location when targeting Indian clients, that could be interesting, though I expect it may indeed be more appropriate for an identity studies essay than for a legal news website.
Best wishes,
Kian
And I find the contrast with the US very interesting. The US has Preet Bharara, Sri Srinivasan, Neal Katyal and Kamla Harris, and the Chugh firm is unaccountably well regarded in Silicon Valley. In the UK a guy named Khandeparker and his partners call themselves Candey Parker. Hard not to draw a contrast.
Sorry if the discussion went a little meta.
In respect of your examples - what is perhaps ironic is that the Chugh law firm in the US is near symbiotic in its best friendship with South Indian Universal Legal, which I believe was co-founded by Mr Chugh and could not have a less Indian name...
The difference possibly being that the Chugh law firm deals with a lot of NRI clients in the US, whereas Universal Legal is marketed to South Indian clients, MNCs and a few NRIs and foreign companies.
I am trying to say that Indians have some bizarre thought process that their own names are inadequate or politically incorrect for starting a firm. The supreme irony is that the biggest firms on the block in both india and UK / USA are all named after living or dead folk. As a result they end up choosing patently stupid names. Case in point is naming a firm TXVII (T17).
Does it make any difference to a job seeker or a client that Cyril decided to keep his family name? That the promoters of Little & Co still keep Mr Little's name? Answer's obvious.
[...] Candy + Parker !? That's hilarious. At one stroke it shows [...] his belief that a WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) name will garner more clients ironically enough in a racially diverse london where non-whites permeate services and finance. [...]
your name also sound like an ' anglo indian" !
Ganz is a Germanic name. Like Bruno Ganz, the great Swiss actor in films such as "Wings of Desire." "Ganz" is German for "whole" or "entire."
It's not an Anglo name. Not that Herr Ganz's ethnicity should be an issue at all.
I personally know 2 directors and some associates in the firm. This article, it seems is just a way to market the newly established firm although the approach can be questioned.
As mentioned by Kian, the name of the firm was suggested by people other than Abhijeet Khandeparker. The obsession with English names is but obvious depending on the jurisdiction they have started their office in. It's a way to target the potential clientele.
(after reciprocal liberalisation allows them to expand abroad)
1. Am Chan Man Galdas & Principal Associate Designates
2. Cray Tan & Laterals
3. J. S. A. and all partners
4. The Say and The Wanji
5. Chambers of Cya, Cya and Cya.
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