This week’s newsletter – in an experimental new Monday-morning slot – looks at what firms and lawyers get up to in their middle-age. Apparently quite a lot…

ALMT Legal is now back on the map of the London A to Z and the Delhi Metro after re-opening offices there, teleporting two senior partners and having hired two local laterals to rebuild their presence.

Since its inception ALMT London had been inextricably linked to the brand and Delhi was always necessary for the firm’s future growth. The new offices were also promised as soon as ALMT broke up with Clyde & Co in April.

But apart from just business, ALMT’s partnership seems to have been re-energised by its break-up.

Khaitan & Co, where Mumbai is nearing its middle-age after the apparently miraculous recent growth years, now wants some of that same energy elsewhere. Local independent Anindita Phukan has joined Bangalore as Khaitan has vowed that building Delhi and Bangalore will be key to the firm’s future with more aggressive lateral hiring à la Mumbai promised.

Chief Justice of India SH Kapadia, who has been off to a running start, has barely broken stride in his first 15 months - roughly mid-way through his tenure. But according to CJI Kapadia’s mid-term report card in Court Witness’ latest Supreme Court missive, the final stretch will be even more important than what he has achieved so far.

NUJS Kolkata vice chancellor MP Singh will not let retirement stand in the way of continuing his work. The influential academic intends to devote his time to writing books, he tells Legally India, and hopes that his successor at NUJS will be an academic first, then an administrator.

Judging by the latest bar exam results Indian academia could indeed do with a boost: the bar exam pass rate dropped to only 69 per cent with almost half of those taking the test for the second time failing.

The profession as a whole appears to have some more years of growing left in it yet.

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Best of the rest and Legally Wired

• Balaji writ v 31 foreign firms adjourned today, BCI files reply, final hearing on 22 September
• Ex-Linklaters lawyer gets Trilegal partnership
• NLSIU Rhodes scholar V Niranjan tops ‘exhilarating’ Oxford postgrad, to practise at bar
• England’s first Sikh HC judge; SC issues ex parte guidelines; file sharing under fire
• SC pending cases increase by 2,500 in 2 months; Ambani tower under fire; Gere-Shetty kiss not cool
• Raju no bail; Mangalore air crash appeal; Vodafone tax SC chapter; Tata denies 2G bribe
• A&O sues Indian client for fees; ‘Sick minds’ made Land Acq’n Act: SC
• SH Kapadia mid-term appraisal: Crying Room Hercules cleans SC stables after dirty decades, only half-done

Deals & cases of the week

• Bombay HC rules service tax chargable on immovable property rentals; Naik, retailers now wait for Delhi HC
• JSA, AZB, Covington draw up Disney’s $454m UTV buyout
• Third Blackstone nod goes to Khaitan in $34m Luthra-FINO investment
• 5 deals in brief: ALA for EU publishing giant India entry; Universal Legal Chennai; Khaitan-HDFC ac fin, Trilegal flight sim

Best of blogs

• STANLEY KA DABBA: A CHILD'S CREATION OF HIS IMAGINARY MOTHER by Anshumaan
• My First Day at a NLU by Mad Man
• India: Union or Federation by Lawcrats
• My sonic internship by scarecrow
• First year @ Law School by Lawcrats

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