London-based international Magic Circle law firm Linklaters has elevated banking team managing associate Pathik Gandhi to partner.

He is a 2010 Nalsar Hyderabad graduate, who had joined Linklaters in 2010, straight from college. He was made a managing associate at Linklaters in 2017.

According to his firm profile he “has experience advising on sponsor-backed leveraged structures in the Asian market and works closely with the firm’s India Group”, and had been “seconded to the EMEA leveraged finance team at Citigroup for nine months and has also worked briefly in the firm’s Singapore office”.

Gandhi’s promotion is part of a global round of 35 at the international law firm.

The promotion round at Linklaters was also more diverse than usual: 40% of new partners were women, while 25% of new partners in the UK and US self-identified as being from a “minority ethnic background” (BigLaw partners in those two countries have predominantly been of Anglo-Saxon / White ethnicity).

His firm profile notes: “Pathik was involved in the pilot of the firm’s INspire programme, focused on developing leadership skills among the under-represented diverse talent within the firm.”

NLSIU Bangalore has historically dominated promotions of India-educated lawyers at foreign law firms (in large part due to its age advantage of being the first national law school), in recent years other schools have seen similar numbers.

More recent foreign law firm promotions include:

• Watson Farley promoting ILS Pune's Dhruv Paul,
• Willkie Farr promoting NUJS Kolkata 2008 grad Rahul Saha,
• Jones Day promoting NLSIU Bangalore 2007 grad Vinay Kurien.

Of course, besides a bit of a network effects advantage in terms of law firm relationships, that stat doesn’t really matter either beyond bragging rights (so please take note, in the comments).