Ex-Amarchand Mangaldas lawyer and NUJS Kolkata 2006 graduate Abhishek Kolay has joined Kirkland & Ellis in New York as a partner, making him one of the first (if not the first) alumnus from NUJS to make it to partnership at a top international law firm.

Kolay had started his career at erstwhile Amarchand Mangaldas in 2006, but moved to Hong Kong with Davis Polk & Wardwell in 2010.

In 2015, he moved to Menlo Park, California with Davis Polk, leaving in April 2018.

He has now joined Kirkland in its New York office.

We have reached out to him for comment.

Kolay is admitted to practice in India, New York and California.

He specialises in domestic and cross-border M&A, including for private equity funds.

Regarding India, he has advised DLF on its sale of Aman Resorts, acted for TPG Growth on investments in India, including Lenskart, Flexituff and the Landmark group, as well as other PE groups and investors such as Tencent, Warburg Pincus and KKR on investments in India.

To date, out of the national law schools, it has been mostly NLSIU Bangalore that has dominated in foreign law firm partnerships by expats from India: most recently, Sushil Jacob made it to Linklaters’ partnership in March, Sinjini Saha (2004 batch) at Milbank and Cadwalader, Nallini Puri (2004 batch) at Cleary Gottlieb, and Ramya S Tiller (2002 batch) at Debevoise & Plimpton.