The new equity partners are Rohit Jain and Nishant Shah heading Mumbai’s tax team, and Naresh Thacker and Tarun Gulati who head litigation in Mumbai and Delhi respectively, stated a press release by the firm.
Four months ago ELP had commissioned HR consultants Aon Hewitt to prepare a report on how to restructure its partnership that was delivered this month, managing partner Rohan Shah confirmed to Legally India.
Rohan Shah declined to confirm the content of the report but it is understood that its recommendations have not yet been implemented.
He explained that these promotions were part of the wider partnership restructuring drive, although for now the new equity partners were not part of a specific equity sharing model such as a lockstep, but were simply slotted into the existing equity pool.
The percentage of their equity share in the firm would grow as a function of their performance, he said, adding: “I seriously also anticipate many more [joining the equity pool]. We have consciously worked toward creating expertise, and everybody feels they have a fair and predictable shot at it. It is completely performance driven.”
Rohan Shah noted that all partners in the restructured equity would be evaluated on a “series of parameters”, combining “all indices in relation to everything that matters” to the firm.
In Mumbai, seven associate partners were promoted into the non-equity partnership: Pranay Bhatia in tax, Aqeel Sherazi in litigation, Darshan Upadhyay in corporate and M&A, Jeet Sengupta in banking and finance, Madhur Baya in arbitration and dispute resolution, Sanjay Notani in international trade and WTO and Yashojit Mitra in private investment.
Tax associate partner Ajit Tolani was made partner in Pune. All will carry the partner designation but do not hold any equity in the firm.
“For us the fact that all of these people have grown internally in the firm, that is what makes us proud,” commented Rohan Shah. “These are superstars we have spawned internally. For us it was really about people who were committing their careers to ELP, having as much certainty as they could in terms of their career path.”
ELP created the associate partner designation in 2010, explaining to Legally India at the time that this would be a stepping stone to equity partner.
Amarchand Mangaldas began the implementation of a report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in late 2010, which recommended a restructuring of the non-family equity and management of the firm.
Comments
The United States give more rights to women than India, yet it didn't have single woman president till date. Whereas we Indians have made Pratibha Patil our president just because she is a woman and have realised the mistake later on.
Agree with you. Forget equity stake. The big guys arent even promoting deserving ones. The so called biggies are just losing out on talent purely because of how they deal with (or rather choose to ignore) good talent within. A pity!!
just for those who are interested...
In their most basic form, equity partners enjoy a fixed share of the partnership (usually, but not always an equal share with the other partners).
However, in more sophisticated partnerships, different models exist for determining either ownership or profit distribution (or both).
Probably the most common two forms are "lockstep" and "eat what you kill" compensation (sometimes referred to as, less graphically, a "source of origination").
Lockstep involves new partners joining the partnership with a certain number of "points". As time passes, they accrue additional points, until they reach a set maximum. The length of time it takes to reach the maximum is often used to describe the firm (so, for example, one could say that one firm has a "seven year lockstep" and another has a "ten year lockstep" depending on the length of time it takes to reach maximum equity).
Eat-what-you-kill is rarely, if ever, seen outside of law firms. The principle is simply that each partner receives a share of the partnership profits up to a certain amount, with any additional profits being distributed to the partner who was responsible for the "origination" of the work that generated the profits.
British law firms tend to use the lockstep principle, whereas American firms are more accustomed to eat-what-you-kill. When British firm Clifford Chance merged with American firm Rogers & Wells, many of the difficulties associated with that merger were blamed on the difficulties of merging a lockstep culture with an eat-what-you-kill culture.
just for those who are interested...
In their most basic form, equity partners enjoy a fixed share of the partnership (usually, but not always an equal share with the other partners).
However, in more sophisticated partnerships, different models exist for determining either ownership or profit distribution (or both).
Probably the most common two forms are "lockstep" and "eat what you kill" compensation (sometimes referred to as, less graphically, a "source of origination").
Lockstep involves new partners joining the partnership with a certain number of "points". As time passes, they accrue additional points, until they reach a set maximum. The length of time it takes to reach the maximum is often used to describe the firm (so, for example, one could say that one firm has a "seven year lockstep" and another has a "ten year lockstep" depending on the length of time it takes to reach maximum equity).
Eat-what-you-kill is rarely, if ever, seen outside of law firms. The principle is simply that each partner receives a share of the partnership profits up to a certain amount, with any additional profits being distributed to the partner who was responsible for the "origination" of the work that generated the profits.
British law firms tend to use the lockstep principle, whereas American firms are more accustomed to eat-what-you-kill. When British firm Clifford Chance merged with American firm Rogers & Wells, many of the difficulties associated with that merger were blamed on the difficulties of merging a lockstep culture with an eat-what-you-kill culture.[/quote]
Yeah but what if partners try to eat up and spit out those who show promise. Then what??