Khaitan & Co associate partner in the Delhi litigation team, Mohit Abraham, will join taxi aggregator Uber to head up its Indian legal function as legal director India.
Abraham had joined Khaitan in July 2014 after the majority of the start-up he co-founded, PXV Law Partners, was acquired by Khaitan.
Abraham added: “I am very grateful to Khaitan & Co and its partners for giving me an amazing platform and for the confidence reposed in me. I look forward to a continued association with my esteemed colleagues.”
Abraham, who had topped the advocates-on-record (AoR) exam in 2012, began his career at Amarchand Mangaldas after graduating from NUJS Kolkata in 2005. He practiced in the Supreme Court from 2008 until 2010, when he joined RDA Legal, which later became PXV.
Uber is a client of Khaitan’s, with the firm, including Abraham, having acted for the company in the Delhi high court in its continuing regulatory nightmare in the aftermath of the rape allegedly committed by one of its driver contractors.
“As a part of Khaitan, I have been closely working with Uber and I am very excited to be a part of its extremely talented and dynamic team,” commented Abraham, noting that Uber was “one of the most exciting companies in the world… positively impacting millions”.
We have reached out to Uber for comment.
Former Amarchand Mangaldas partner Suhaan Mukerji’s firm PLR Chambers was handling the governmental relations and policy lobbying work of the Silicon Valley company that is touted to be worth up to $50bn.
Khaitan & Co Mumbai partner Rabindra Jhunjhunwala declined to comment when contacted yesterday.
Update: Jhunjhunwala commented: “We look forward to strengthening our relationship with Uber. It’s a fabulous opportunity for Mohit, who will be a great asset for Uber. The partnership wishes him well.”
PXV co-founder GT Thomas Phillippe is associate partner Delhi, while PXV co-founders Rohit Das and Pingal Khan are each running independent firms.
Co-founder Deepto Roy, who had joined Khaitan with Phillippe and Abraham, has joined Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas recently.
Comments
In legal profession, rolling stones/gypsies are neither the treasured lot nor the trusted...lesson for the new gen...stay put at a place even if it's not the best that you could have got!
You are quoting that out of context. How many of us truly "love" our jobs? Almost all will have some issue or the other which becomes a thorn after a year or so (once honeymoon period wears off). Does that mean everyone keeps swapping jobs?? Certainly not. A certain amount of pain in a job is to be expected and everytime you change a job there is a cost which is invisible but which if sufficient can come back and bite you in the arse. This is not to suggest you must go one being mistreated and humiliated.
In legal profession, rolling stones/gypsies are neither the treasured lot nor the trusted...lesson for the new gen...stay put at a place even if it's not the best that you could have got![/quote]
Very doubtful if he was making even a tenth of that amount. 50-70 lakhs p.a. is the usual range for salaried partners. Of course nobody will admit as much. Probably Uber oferred him double that.
Rest of your comment I have no qualms with. Not just legal profession, in any profession devotion and time in service make a substantial difference. A person who has a background of 5 job shifts in 8-9 years will never be taken as seriously as someone with 1-2 jobs. No reflection on merit, etc. but shows weakness of character and uncertainty of mind.
AMSS, LLM, Solo Practice, PXV, Khaitan and now Uber. Average time in a job is 1.66 years. Not a good sign at all.
1. Yes yes yes, you're all right - it completely slipped my mind that Deepto had joined SAM. Have corrected.
2. I'm glad so many of you are reading to the end of stories - some survey once said that 90% or something of readers online stop reading after the first paragraph. :)
3. Cookie monster, no, you may not have a cookie for third. :P
4. @4 - law firms are usually fairly happy if clients poach partners since it lets them strengthen the relationship. Have updated story with a quote from Khaitan also now.
Seriously though, that just sounds like a healthy and pretty standard career path no (if excluding the start-up firm bit)?
Big firm to LLM is certainly more common than not.
Big firm/LLM to advocate is less common but not unusual.
From individual practice onwards, it seems like a pretty natural progression, though perhaps a bit faster than most...
And at this point, Abraham replies, "Bete, you won't understand. My life doesn't depend on whether someone has a finger itch to touch their phone screen. Given where I am, I can do whatever I please and still get paid for it."
And at this point, Abraham replies, "Bete, you won't understand. My life doesn't depend on whether someone has a finger itch to touch their phone screen. Given where I am, I can do whatever I please and still get paid for it."[/quote]
This is indeed a funny comment. Soli, Fali, Cyril, Zia are all on standby for their clients at any hour of day or night. Nobody, least of all a salaried employee in the private sector can think he / she is not dependent on the finger itch of others. Lawyers in companies have their own masters just as associates or advocates have theirs. That late night call wont come from an irritated client, it'll come from an irritated manager in Uber's sales / marketing team.
Actually the company-employee relationship is technically a master-servant one if you read your contract law.
If you really really want to know, I can check in LI's database and do some queries, as don't have it to hand right now.
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody
Doesn't have a point of view
Knows not where he's going to
Isn't he a bit like you and me?
You really got me laughing with this one. Sorry to interrupt you while you are evidently topping your whisky with vodka instead of water, but would you care to explain what on earth that actually means. Or is the post just meant to be a random demo of your language skills, [...]? I'm willing to bet you're from kco :-D Haigreve may be more dynamic than any of us can imagine, but he should worry if he isn't.
Technically, in Silicon Valley speak, this may have been an acqui-hire more than an outright acquisition but I dont think such distinctions are generally made in law firm partnerships.
Compare it to a company's share sale versus an asset sale. An asset sale might not take on all liabilities, assets, employees, etc either, yet it would still be an acquisition.
In a partnership, if you absorb the majority of a firm's partners and their books of business into a larger firm, it's pretty much an acquisition (since keeping the smaller partnership alive and integrating that deed into the bigger firm's is practically impossible, unlike in companies where it could happily live as a subsidiary).
Why are you and a few others so hung up about the 'acquisition' word? What's it to you or even PXV whether it's an aqui-hire or an acquisition or a mass poaching of PXV partners and staff that dissolves the PXV partnership?
We haven't reported on Zehn starting up - I think that's a more recent development. How big are they? How many partners and associates came directly from PXV?
Please do answer my earlier question though why the word 'acquisition' is so important to you, otherwise this discussion is a bit of a waste of time for both of us.
Look at his track record, you envious tooth p*ick! Based on what you say, ML Sharma, who has a licence to practice has to be your god and fantasy!
Can't Mohit always come back to practice after having made his money? Are you guys pissed off about the fact that he has more opportunities than you can possibly have even in your wet dreams?
Going by your logic, Lloyd Blankfein made a "sad decision" to join GS. Are you shooting emails to Lloyd Blankfein each day saying he missed his calling despite having a Harvard law degree?
if you have creds and gravitas as abraham, sorry you didnt get the deal. If you don't, sorry again.