Amarchand Mangaldas has hired the head of Irish firm William Fry’s competition law department, John Handoll, as a senior adviser in European and competition law, as first reported by Bar & Bench today.
It is understood that he joined the firm at the beginning of October, but he was not able to comment when contacted at the time of going to press.
He has been at the Dublin-based firm William Fry for the last 16 years, most recently as senior partner.
He has graduated from the University of Manchester in 1978.
Partner and the head of Amarchand Delhi’s competition team Pallavi Shroff was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.
Khaitan & Co had poached Irish competition lawyer Paku Khan in late 2011, whom Amarchand’s Delhi competition team had hired in 2009 and promoted to partner-equivalent director level by October 2011. Khan is a person of Indian origin (PIO) who was working at A&L Goodbody before coming to work in India for Amarchand.
Comments
Mumbai is cyril and nisha's competition team. It remains to be seen if John outlasts his successor!! AMSS is clearly ahead of AZB who is yet to hire a competition partner in bombay.
Incidentally you should cover the moves TTA is making in the competition law space as well.
Best regards,
Kian
Who's TTA in the competition law space?
It is interesting to see Indian firms hiring lawyers who have worked in small local firms abroad. But is it for knowledge development (possibly not), contact/network utilization or branding for visibility? William Fry is a leading Dublin firm but in the larger scheme of BigLaw, it is outside the club and is much smaller in terms of Revenue per Lawyer (RPL) or Profits per Partner (PEP). In fact, these firms are so small in terms of their scope of work and client list that they pay associate solicitors as much as top London firms pay their trainee solicitors. The practice they run is also very different, small scale and local. As a business strategy, how do these lawyers benefit Indian firms if they are neither able to contribute much to knowledge or to business development. Thus the question, how much is Amarchand willing to pay these people and why are they hiring them at all?
Ideas anyone?
Can someone just ring one of the Shroffs and ask them what cute titles they're allocating to the staff instead of real power and authority? Any lawyer hung up on a silly title like "deputy corporate head " is not really a lawyer in the fullest sense of the word.
AM does everything possible to block foreign law firms from entering but when it suits them they take on foreing lawyers.
That seems hypocritical to me (and actually not very funny)!!
If you attended the IBA conference this year the Dublin lawyers were far superior to us in terms of structuring banking and corporate transactions and matched London lawyers when it came to EU law...
Even though Ireland is a small economy and its entire population is half of Mumbai, its leading law firm A&L Goodbody employs 400 highly qualified lawyers...
You can say what you want about the Shroffs but they obviously must have seen something before making such a big move...
(Note: Dublin lawyers even though better are also very humble and jovial and quite a welcome change from the National Law grad who walks arounds with a chip on his/her shoulder)
If you attended the IBA conference this year the Dublin lawyers were far superior to us in terms of structuring banking and corporate transactions and matched London lawyers when it came to EU law...
Even though Ireland is a small economy and its entire population is half of Mumbai, its leading law firm A&L Goodbody employs 400 highly qualified lawyers...
You can say what you want about the Shroffs but they obviously must have seen something before making such a big move...
(Note: Dublin lawyers even though better are also very humble and jovial and quite a welcome change from the National Law grad who walks arounds with a chip on his/her shoulder)[/quote]
No one has even heard of A& L good whatever or William whatever. The only reason to hire Irish as opposed to Brussels/ London lawyers is a cost issue. The IBA was in Dublin this year. It is in Boston next year. It does not mean that next year Boston lawyers will be the top lawyers. This is hardly a big move. Getting a magic circle competition expert from the EU would have been big ( and MUCH more expensive)
If you feel that this is not big news then you should blame LI instead...
If you feel that this is not big news then you should blame LI instead...[/quote]
That is my point. Get Amitabh Bachchan and that's big news. Getting an obscure MacMohan or a geriatric Girish Karnad is definitely not "big".
If you attended the IBA conference this year the Dublin lawyers were far superior to us in terms of structuring banking and corporate transactions and matched London lawyers when it came to EU law...
Even though Ireland is a small economy and its entire population is half of Mumbai, its leading law firm A&L Goodbody employs 400 highly qualified lawyers...
You can say what you want about the Shroffs but they obviously must have seen something before making such a big move...
(Note: Dublin lawyers even though better are also very humble and jovial and quite a welcome change from the National Law grad who walks arounds with a chip on his/her shoulder)[/quote]
You clearly are a Dublin lawyer!! Why the angst with National Law grads? Is it because Dublin lawyers are not recognized to practise law in India and cannot appear at the CCI!
If I was a Dublin lawyer (which I am not) isn't it actually a great compliment that despite the handicap of not being able to appear at the CCI, India's premier law firm has still decided to hire a Dublin lawyer as the head of their nascent Competition Law Practice! That too despite so many "qualified" National Law grads like yourself who are willing to give an eye teeth for such a position.
Hmmm?!