Following the February reports that the previous managing and co-founding partners Karan Singh and Rahul Matthan were stepping down, Trilegal’s new semi-elected managing partners Sridhar Gorthi and Nishant Parikh have taken over today.

Right off the bat, the new team will be facing one of the greatest law firm management challenges possible with pretty much the entire workforce working remotely and an economic crisis impossible to avoid.

However, on the flipside the pool of partners participating in running the firm has been considerably widened, with a “focus”, according to the press release, “on inter-generational transition” and “further cementing an institutional mind-set for the continued growth of the firm”.

And while disputes head and partner Sitesh Mukherjee has announced he would leave the firm to become an independent counsel, his successor has been set up (see below).

The firm noted in a statement: “After 11 years of successfully building and leading the disputes practice at Trilegal, Sitesh [Mukherjee] has expressed his desire to move on from the firm and pursue a career as a counsel.”

Senior management

The management committee of Gorthi and Parikh will have a term of three years, while a seven-member board will have a four-year term.

This board would be a “sounding board on certain key matters”, said the firm, and would “advise the management committee on important initiatives”, while also enhancing the “leadership pool in the firm and provide diversity of ideas and influence”.

The first board will be made up of partners Akshay Jaitly, Rahul Matthan, Karan Singh, Charandeep Kaur, Kosturi Ghosh, Saurabh Bhasin and Delano Furtado.

Co-founding partner Jaitly commented: “From the very beginning, Trilegal has been committed and has progressively put in place structures to build an institution - our new governance structure is an important step in that direction.

“We are confident that it will create a robust platform offering a wider group of partners the opportunity to be part of the leadership of the firm, attract and retain talent and continue to find innovative solutions for our clients’ businesses.”

Groups galore

In a nutshell, lots of the internal wiring at Trilegal is being redone, creating a new banking practice group vertical, while the heads of corporate, projects and litigation will all change.

The tax and capital markets teams, meanwhile, are part of the corporate practice group, under the same partners who had been heading the verticals before too.

Correction 21:05: The tax and capital markets teams are in fact still under the corporate team, not now independent, as reported initially.

The only groups that will not see any change will be the competition team, under Nisha Kaur Uberoi.

Round-up of changes below:

• a new banking practice group has been set up and will be headed by Ameya Khandge,
• tax will still be headed by Himanshu Sinha (though subordinate to corporate),
• capital markets will continue to be headed by Bhakta Patnaik (though also continues to remain within the corporate umbrella).
• the corporate practice group, which had been headed by Parikh, will now be headed jointly by Harsh Pais and Yogesh Singh.
• the projects practice group will be headed by Neeraj Menon, having previously been headed up by Delhi-based co-founding partner Akshay Jaitly.
• the disputes practice will continue to be headed by Sitesh Mukherjee, but would hand over from 1 July to Shankh Sengupta, due to his impending departure.
• the competition practice will continue to be headed by Nisha Kaur Uberoi.

Office heads

As we had reported in February, the firm was also playing with the idea of designating office heads, in part to encourage more partners to participate in management (and as a potential grooming track for more senior management roles down the line).

According to Trilegal’s statement, “the office head will be responsible for the day-to-day management and general welfare of each office”.

• the NCR region’s office head is Charandeep Kaur,
• Mumbai is Delano Furtado, and
• Bengaluru is Kosturi Ghosh.

Not everything is changing

Transition times can be tough, at at no time more so than now.

As such, it may be helpful that chief operating officer (COO) Sabiana Anandaraj is continuing in her role “assist the management committee with oversight on day-to-day execution of key decisions and initiatives”, according to the firm.