start-up law firms
J Sagar Associates (JSA) tax chair Ashok Dhingra, partner Smita Singh, and partner-equivalent chartered accountant (CA) Sonia Gupta, have set up boutique tax advisory firm Ashok Dhingra Associates (ADA).
Clasis Law co-founding partner Sakate Khaitan and three Clasis senior associates have started Khaitan Legal Associates, a law firm with offices in Mumbai and London.
The Vedanta Group’s former general counsel Ajit Yadav has started up the law firm Lexaya Partners four months ago, reported Bar & Bench.
Lexaya Partners is a corporate and business law advisory firm according to his Linked-in profile, focusing on corporate law, power, infrastructure, ports, natural resources, indirect tax, IP and litigation.
Yadav was Vedanta GC between 2011 and March 2014, a Fox Mandal Little partner from 2010, preceded by 28 years in-house, as company secretary or executive director at Patni Computer Systems, PepsiCo India, Ranbaxy Laboratories and Hindustan Unilever, also having set up legal process outsourcing (LPO) business Lexaya Solutions in the last four years.
He told Bar & Bench that there was an acute shortage of business lawyers and he was looking to fill that gap, having started work with some corporates already and having five of counsel to handle litigation.
DSK Legal’s only partner in Bangalore, Ajesh Kumar Shankar, demerged his practice from DSK into AKS Law Associates in April, going independent again.
Legal Matrix, a Hyderabad-based start-up law firm set up in 2011 by Aruna Kumari after leaving Fox Mandal Little, as it was then called, has merged into Kochhar & Co’s Hyderabad office with five lawyers.
Three co-founding equity partners of PXV Law Partners, Deepto Roy, Mohit Abraham and GT Thomas Phillippe, are set to join Khaitan & Co as associate partners by 1 August.
Majmudar & Partner senior associates Tejus Cherian and Vinod Kamath left the firm in April to start up corporate law firm CK Juris in Bangalore in June.
J Sagar Associates (JSA) Bangalore partner Promod Nair has started an independent arbitration practice.
Zeus will continue to be managed by Tandon’s brother-in-law Sunil Tyagi and partner Vivek Kohli.
Former Mulla & Mulla associate’s one-month old media law start up wins ‘sweeping’ injunction and costs for iconic singer Sonu Nigam against iconic singer Mika Singh.
Former MSD Pharmaceuticals and Yahoo India legal head Jaspreet Singh Chandhok started up intellectual property (IPR) and media law firm Win Law Group on 1 April, in Delhi and Mumbai.
Infosys senior vice president and general counsel Nithyanandan Radhakrishnan has quit to set up his own law firm in Bangalore, telling TOI: "My exit was amicable. I am going to turn 40 next year and I wanted to do something on my own. In fact, I wanted to quit after the Department of Justice settlement last year. But since there were exits after that, I wanted to stay on for a while."
In a statement Infosys said it would be the first major client of the former GC, who graduated from NLSIU Bangalore in 1998, and specialises in corporate transactional and compliance work. [Times of India]
Vaishali Sharma, the Khaitan & Co lateral partner who left the firm last week, has now hired three associates and won her first instructions.
Former AZB & Partners senior associate, Souvik Ganguly, who founded start-up law firm Acuity Law, as reported by Legally India in February 2012, has joined BMR Legal as a partner.
Khaitan & Co partner Vaishali Sharma, who joined in 2010 from AZB & Partners, has quit the firm.
Trilegal Delhi senior associate Mohit Jolly left the firm on 15 March to set up RDJ & Associates in Delhi, focussing on disputes, corporate-commercial, secretarial and intellectual property (IPR) work.
One of IndusLaw's co-founding partners, Tapas Misra, who became an of counsel at the firm 18 months ago and headed up its tax practice, has left with his team of two to start a tax boutique firm in Noida on 1 March.
Five lawyers from HSA Advocates, J Sagar Associates (JSA), Luthra & Luthra, AZB & Partners and Zeus IP have started Delhi firm Jupiter Law Partners.