Trilegal’s founding partners are to take a step back from management, albeit gradually, with the firm’s partnership having decided to appoint a new management committee (MC) of partner Nishant Parikh and as well as co-founding partner Sridhar Gorthi.
The MC will officially take up work from 1 April with Parikh also stepping down from his role as head of the corporate practice, with a replacement for him to be identified before then.
The management reshuffle, as first reported by Mint, sees yet-to-be-fully-constituted supervisory board (SB) oversee the operations of the MC, which will be responsible for day-to-day management of the 55-partner firm.
Co-founding partners Rahul Matthan and Karan Singh had been running the MC together since the departure of co-founder Anand Prasad in 2016.
Both Matthan and Singh will now sit on the SB, also likely with co-founding partner Akshay Jaitly, and another four non-founder partners to join in due course.
“We’ve always wanted to do this generational transition but it’s actually - it always felt that we can’t become a de facto family run firm, where the founders always run the firm,” Matthan explained. “It’s always been the intention to create extended leadership.”
Following J Sagar Associates (JSA), Trilegal would be the second large Indian law firm that would have democratic partnership elections for its most upper levels of management.
Democracy is hard
The current transition has been in the wings for a long time, though planning for the new governance structure started in earnest over the past six months, according to Matthan.
A Big 4 consultancy firm had even been appointed to oversee the first democratic partnership election to the MC and make sure it is kosher and impartial (the founders themselves had never been elected into the MC roles) though the Big 4’s role eventually proved to be a more limited one. “We were planning to do a full-blown election,” recounted Matthan.
However, while Mumbai-based Parikh had volunteered to run for the MC, there had been no other takers so Gorthi eventually also stepped up to make up the quorum of two, for uncontested appointments.
“We didn’t have very wide number of people who stood and quite frankly that’s the reason that Sridhar was also part of it [the MC],” explained Matthan, since the plan had originally been to make it a completely non-founder partner MC. “But the partners felt that to jump into entirely non-founder management, without any transition even though we ran the process, people leaned on us to say this [Parikh and Gorthi] would be a good combination.”
Even if not fully democratic yet, the appointment process was robust. “We had a very very large committee,” said Matthan. “Anyone who [wanted] to be part of it can be part of it, and we spent a lot of time trying to thrash out the issues.”
The new MC will formally take charge from 1 April, and the MC’s term - and first election - would happen in three years and every three years, thereafter.
Each MC member is limited to two consecutive terms.
Breeding management depth
Law firm management, herding cats, poisoned chalices or whatever you wish to call it, can be a gig where partners blame you when things go wrong and ignore you when things are fine.
“As glamorous as it sounds, it’s not a rewarding role at the end of the day,” agreed Matthan. “You have the title, but half the time you have to do stuff, it’s hard work, this job. And a lot of partners are young and still fee earning.”
Another issue in handing over the reins, especially for a firm such as Trilegal that has had a relatively lean management structure, will be to create the next generation of leaders.
Apart from the MC so far, the main other formal management roles in the firm have been:
- Sitesh Mukherjee as head of disputes,
- Akshay Jaitly as head of projects,
- Nishant Parikh as head of corporate, and
- Nisha Kaur Uberoi, as head of competition.
“We are a 55-partner firm, it doesn’t make sense to half the partners in partnership [in management],” said Matthan. “We want to keep it lean.”
Nevertheless, gradual expansion of management is going to happen at the firm.
One of these might be the appointment of regional “office head” positions, who would be responsible for coordinating the affairs of fast-growing offices in each city (Delhi-Gurgaon, Bangalore and Mumbai).
“That would be another opportunity to demonstrate leadership,” said Matthan.
The visions behind supervision
The supervisory board (SB) is one new management function that may also act as a breeding ground, potentially, for new future MC members, once it reaches the full quorum of seven partners.
“The idea is to give more partners who want to get involved in management the ability to participate in a management body,” according to Matthan. “Part of the confidence in electing a non-founder management, even in the next election, will be how has that person performed when they were in a position of responsibility and authority.”
“We want to give more partners the opportunity to demonstrate that and to get the experience of the board.”
Day-to-day, the SB members would act to “apply a little bit more of the checks and balances that company boards have”, said Matthan. “The board’s role is really to ask appropriate questions”.
It would also oversee the larger decisions concerning the constitution of the partnership, which the MC could not do on its own but required substantial authority from the wider partnership.
The SB, with three co-founders’ presence, would also provide a bit of continuity from the co-founders, which had been a request of the wider partnership - “it’s important to do a sensible transition”, explained Matthan.
“We are very much still part of the firm and part of the management and fingers’ crossed, I hope this goes well,” added Matthan about the handover. “It’s been a very long time in the making.”
“Lots of people have tried, we are working to try and hopefully get it right,” he added about the historical attempts at transition in the Indian corporate legal industry from a founder-driven law firm model.
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Anyway, it's a much welcome step by Trilegal considering how law firms in India are run. However, the best management structure (at least on paper) is that of JSA, which has almost a similar structure to what Trilegal is implementing now; plus has a retirement age for Partners, which I don't see any other law firms taking up.
Small minded and negative thinking, so typical and so sad.
What do you mean by "the JSA route"? Irrespective of what almost everyone says, JSA has retained its position as a Top 6 firm, even after the voluntary retirement of Jyoti and Berjis and some other rainmakers left the firm. If JSA was really disintegrating or losing business, I think 5 years (since Som, Akshay, Berjis left) is a long-enough period for the firm to lose its position. You need to give credit to Jyoti for being able to establish a firm with management structure like JSA and still be at the top end of the table. One will only see how successful the other family-run and promoter-driven firms are after the current managing partners.
The previous MC worked like joint managing partners of Trilegal and presumably this MC will carry the same responsibility. And one hears that the election was due to happen except that one candidate dropped out. There was no volunteering for the role. The new MC was selected unopposed by the entire partnership, clearly showing the old MC the door.
Really, what is this supervisory board then, which is not even fully formed? Is it the founders hoping to continue to be relevant, as a last ditch attempt to retain power?
It would be nice if the founders show true grace and make way for the next set of leaders rather try and grab at strands of power by these (admittedly well done) PR stunts.
Really not trying to troll here, but maybe you should see if you can get some more information on what actually went down. The nation wants to know! Or at least some of us jobless lawyers do.
But before the usual negative comments onslaught typical of LI comments section, congratulations Nishant! Has long been a flag bearer for Trilegal now even before it was a form to be reckoned with. Can’t think of a better or more committed person to take the firm forward
Hard truths below.
Old MC had no popularity and was asked to step down on several wrong decisions they took including unauthorised actions concerning the partnership which came to light.
To avoid loss of face this series of factually inaccurate interviews being given out stating they will still be in management.
Board is administrative not supervisory. New MC did not even know of these interviews. Old MC called and begged old timers for old times sake to allow them to choose the new board for them to have some face saver which is now being projected otherwise.
Matthan and Singh have not been rainmakers or executors for a long while and absence of real world connect is showing when they run down the new management who are competent colleagues like Nishant and Gorthi. Poor form and shows why they lack the heft and moral authority of a Haigreve, Shardul, Zia or Cyril. Guess its tough being asked to step down from your own firm. Doesnt help that Akshay J is moving to Paris and resigning from the partnership from June but will be a Trilegal consultant out of Paris. The bubble has burst.
HUH? Trilegal is an equal partnership one partner one vote. Who is Rahul to give anyone any opportunity or to deny anyone. He sounds like the founder firm partners he constantly derides openly without their professional standing and stature.
Please do proofread before you post your reply.
Warm regards,
It is a great step by Trilegal although I don’t think situation is as happy as being made out to be. But this isn’t happening anywhere else
If the new management structure continues to provide a role for the founders, that's because the partnership thinks there is value in their staying on (not to miss that Gorthi, part of the new MC, is also a founder -- looks like he is not on the board or maybe he is).
Also, if Jaitley is leaving the partnership, he cannot be on the board. So new board will have the old MC and 5 or 6 other partners. Sounds fair from a democratic perspective.
The comments from the old MC only reflect the lack of calibre and poor judgement, goes to prove why they had to leave.
I do hope the firm continues to grow and prosper -- since that will give hope in democracy to other law firm folks in the market including yours truly.
Way to go Tri
Firstly, what sets Trilegal apart as a firm is that unlike the other top tier firms, we believe that the firm was founded by certain principles as much as it was founded by certain personalities. When these personalities and the principles collide, we put principles ahead of personalities. Democracy is a foundational principle of my firm. It is dishonest to state that an elected Management Committee is subservient to a nominated Board. Meritocracy is another core principle we hold dear as a firm. We showed the outgoing Management Committee the door because they had established that they didn’t deserve to be on the Management Committee on merits alone—[...].
Secondly, no matter how hard the outgoing Management Committee might try, it is not possible to spin this change as a transition from a founder led management to a non-founder led management. Sridhar is as much of a founder as the members of the outgoing Management Committee are. The truth is that my peers in the Partnership and I were convinced that we desperately needed a change of personnel at the top. These two founders were ousted from the Management Committee; the Board seats were lollipops [...].
Thirdly, this Board is not supervisory—it is advisory. Nishant and Sridhar aren’t toddlers who need the outgoing Management Committee‘s supervision. We finally have two extremely capable individuals leading the firm who have the vision, energy, commitment, and gravitas to meet the challenges the future will throw at us.
Congratulations, Nishant and Sridhar. I know this is a thankless job, and I can’t find two better people to not thank.
Its like playing ludo, just that you got yellow this time.
funny to see akshay jaitey demoted to "head of projects".
However, let there be no doubt, democracy is messy and its in full flow at Trilegal -- none of the other rival firms can bost of this level of partner empowerment
let us empower the empowered.
save this word for nobler causes man. do not trivialize it.
Hard fact is that in the last few years, Karan does not have any key deals to his name. One reason for this is that Nishant stopped working with Karan a decade ago.
And honestly, your statement reflects badly on Karan. This kind of thinking shows that he does not seem to have the capability to empower or mentor the next generation.
Lets take some obvious questions - is a modern Indian firm with a large number of women working there best led by these two gentlemen. Maybe, maybe not. Are they the best fit to respond to a me too allegation against one of the partners? That such allegations will pop up is a matter of when not if.
The value of elections is that it forces issues like these to the forefront. By avoiding an election, the partnership has done itself a disservice. How does a firm look to prepare for an uncertain future in a competitive environment when it does not want to give much thought to these questions. Doesn't look like much deliberative decision making took place here.
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