Exclusive: Former Tatva Legal Bangalore co-founding partner Manoj Menon has joined Dua Associates as an equity partner in Bangalore to head the firm’s private equity and M&A practice, three years after he left as a salaried partner at the firm to Tatva.

Menon’s team at Tatva – Karan Ajitsaria and Sharan Balasuramanian – have followed him to Dua as manager and associate, respectively. The three joined on 11 February.

Menon had left Dua as a partner in the private equity and M&A practice with Ajitsaria, and eight Dua partners in Jaunary 2010 to found Tatva, as reported by Legally India at the time. A total of 50 lawyers from three Dua offices were part of the breakaway group.

After graduating from NLSIU Bangalore in 1996, Menon joined Arthur Anderson. In 1998 he left to join the newly established Mumbai office of Dua Associates with his colleague Satish Kishanchandani, who later co-founded DSK Legal.

In 2000 Menon joined Traveljini as manager, leaving in August 2001 to join Dua again, this time in Bangalore. He was at Dua for more than eight years.

Menon confirmed he was now an equity partner in the Bangalore office alongside two litigation partners and two corporate partners, though he declined to comment on his decision to leave Tatva.

Dua founding partner Ranji Dua commented via email: “We welcome him back and his team. As you may be aware the firm continues to grow both organically and by lateral movements, of which in particular there have been partners who have returned back to the firm after an outside experience. As a general policy we encourage in welcoming back talent that has been with us earlier. With time we are increasingly convinced that our management structure of an Executive Committee and Sub-committees is appealing to many professionals.”

In October 2012, Dua Associates had launched a tax practice in Gurgaon after hiring former Deloitte Haskins & Sells tax director Ashutosh Mahajan and his team of six, as reported by Legally India.

Tatva co-founding partner Shishir Sharma confirmed Menon’s departure and commented: “We respect his decision to move and wish him all the best for his future endeavours.”

In April 2012 Tatva started a litigation office in New Delhi close to the Supreme Court to complement its Gurgaon corporate office. The firm had also set up an office in Chennai, which is headed by Santosh Ukkur who was promoted to partnership around the same time.