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The below articles, like many others, were first published exclusively for subscribers hours before everyone else got to read it.
Former Economic Laws Practice (ELP) partner Deep Roy, whom we had reported to have resigned in March, has started up a boutique firm under the name Equilex, in the finance and sexy flavour-of-the-month insolvency space.
Nishith Desai Associates (NDA) had circulated an internal email announcing a salary freeze for mid-level associates and above, due to the firm having experienced “stagnancy in the revenue growth for 2019”.
L&L Partners young corporate partner Amit Shetye is set to join New York-headquartered infrastructure investment fund giant Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) in a senior in-house legal and executive role in India, according to several sources.
The government has released a draft policy to improve education in India; also buried within its 484 pages are recommendations to improve legal education in the country by ensuring it “reflect[s] social-cultural contexts” and “fall[s] back upon the culture and traditions of people, the history of legal institutions and victory of ‘Dharma’ over ‘Adharma’ writ large in Indian literature and mythology”.
Advaita Legal senior partner Atul Dua will be setting up an independent high court chambers practice, after disagreements between him and Advaita’s best friend consultancy firm KPMG.
A major part of Legally India’s core mission has always been transparency. When we first set up in 2009, the domestic legal market was largely shrouded in secrecy and could be understood only by tapping into an arcane flow of information and rumours spread via professional networks.
“M&A is the mainstay of any small or large corporate firm’s practice,” states Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi corporate partner Amit Khansaheb, one of the InLegal 50’s top dealmakers of the financial year 2018-19. “M&A is always happening – bear or bull market – although valuations may differ, expectations may vary and people may put off plans from time to time,” he adds.
A law firm is only ever as good as the collection of its partners. And (nearly) all top transactional partners will be quick to tell you that they are only as good as their team. The analysis that follows is therefore a recognition not just of individual partners’ rainmaking and execution abilities, but also a testament to leadership and teamwork from everyone involved.
At least 17 insolvency deals under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code brought significant work to Indian law firms in our tables in the 2018-19 financial year, with deal values of $20.5bn.
The proof of most things lies in the pudding, and for a good corporate lawyer, your pudding begins and ends with the kind of work that clients entrust you with.
Equity capital markets (CM) can be a tough practice area for a law firm to manage. When the going is good and the markets are booming, it seems like there aren’t enough lawyers to handle the work; when the capital markets go to sleep, utilisation and profits plummet.
Foreign law firms too have had a bumper year in India, with the vast majority of public instructions linked to their relationships with their marquee private equity clients, which were very hot on India this year. We have ranked the top 13 firms that had at least two India mandates with deal values attached, signifying transactions with a significant India element.
To some extent it’s understandable: for years, the Indian legal profession – particularly litigation – has been dominated by men, and most of the new law firms that rose in the nineties and noughties were headed by men. The (generally) male managing partners would often be busy trying to capture market share and executing the work; worrying about whether female lawyers were given the same opportunities as the men was for many an afterthought, if that.
Our M&A and private equity / VC corporate law firm league tables - which we launched in December of last year and have been working on for a long time - are nearly finalised for the financial year 2018-19 (running from 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019).
In a major move by consultancies in the global legal markets, Big 4 consultant EY has gobbled up legal process outsourcer (LPO) Pangea3 from Thomson Reuters, which had bought the then-India-headquartered LPO in 2010 for up to $40m from its founders.
Netflix India director legal Ashish Chandra has joined WhatsApp as associate general counsel (GC) India, making him the messaging giant’s first in-house legal hire in India.
Advaita Legal lawyers Subodh Sadana and Ray Sharat Prasad - who were formerly partner and associate partner respectively at Seth Dua & Associates - have joined Khaitan & Khaitan as partners.
JGLS Sonepat’s final year students of its three-year and five-year LLB programmes graduating this year have secured a total of 83 jobs, including 29 jobs with Big 7 law firms, though its batch sizes have continued increasing.
Balaji Telefilms vice president legal Priyanka Chaudhari has joined Netflix Entertainment Services India LLP as its legal director and senior counsel in the regional intellectual property vertical yesterday.
Seth Dua & Associates co-founder Atul Dua, who in 2017 became partner at Advaita Legal - the best-friend law firm of Big 4 consultancy KPMG - is set to leave the firm, we have learned from authoritative sources.