Phoenix Legal Delhi-based insurance disputes partners Mrinal Ojha, Trinath Tadakamalla and Debarshi Dutta have resigned from the firm and are expected to be in the process of setting up their own law firm, called Solaris Legal.

According to a statement from Phoenix, they were “primarily part” of the firm’s insurance disputes practice. The firm said: “We enjoyed working with them and wish them all the best in their future endeavours.”

They had joined in 2015 from Khaitan Sud & Partners to kickstart Phoenix’ litigation practice.

We understand that the three of them will be starting up their own firm. We have reached out for comment to each of them, and will update this article when we hear from them.

Update 16:37: Tadakamalla confirmed that the firm would be a pure-play disputes practice focusing on insurance, infrastructure and oil, gas and natural resources sectors, across arbitration and tribunals, as well as some high courts with original jurisdiction.

The firm would start out with a team of 6 of their Phoenix team members and they would be looking to recruit more in the coming weeks, he said.

Explaining the strategy of operating a pure disputes practice while competing with other full-service firms, Tadakamalla said that the work pipeline would be “a bit of both direct corporate referrals and overseas law firms”.

“We’ve got our long-standing relationships especially in the infra gas and insurance spaces. We are fairly well known in those areas, and the clients have been with us since our [earlier firms] days. Some of that will continue,” he said. “And we’ve built relationships with overseas firms, who introduce us to overseas clients.”

And he added, more cryptically: “There’s some other things in the pipeline as well.”

Phoenix Legal has a total of 11 partners after their departure.

Phoenix partner Saket Shukla is continuing practising in the insurance space and maritime partner Gautam Bhatikar, who had joined in November 2020 from Legasis, is also active in insurance disputes.