Freshly minted Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas partner Himanshu Dodeja will join private equity major Blackstone as its India general counsel (GC).
Freshly minted Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas Mumbai partner Himanshu Dodeja will join private equity major Blackstone as its India general counsel (GC).
Dodeja specialises almost exclusively on private equity and, other than Blackstone, has worked for majority private equity houses such as Carlyle, Warburg Pincus and Temasek.
He is a 2004-Amity Law School graduate with a 2007-LLM from New York University’s (NYU) School of Law.
Cyril Amarchand managing partner Cyril Shroff commented: “This builds on our deep relationship with Blackstone. Private equity houses have a long tradition of recruiting from their main relationship firm.
“We wish him well.”
Dodeja declined to comment when contacted.
Other than with Amarchand Mangaldas, as it then was, and its successor firm Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, Blackstone has over the years worked with at least six firms according to Legally India reports.
These have included J Sagar Associates (JSA), Trilegal , Khaitan & Co, Desai & Diwanji and Bharucha & Partners.
Comments
I don't think there would be a single example of someone quitting a big international law firm within weeks of becoming a partner to go in house.
Have to question CAM's judgment with their partner promotion policies. Its obviously not something coveted anymore.
The talks would nearly certainly have been going on for much longer before that, but I imagine the decision probably only happened to come through after partner promos were announced...
As far as I know, team moves haven't been confirmed yet. I imagine they're trying to figure out notice periods, etc, first... Anyone?
Also, CAM (like most law firms tbh) unquestionably has more middle quality execution partners/senior associates than their stars can provide for. If any of them convert into a source for business, that's probably a positive development. And really, no comparison with Ashwath's loss, because Ashwath was bringing in business for his own as well as other practices (Competition, IP, Tax) . If anything, a loyal Dudeja at Blackstone may make up for a small part of the Ashwath loss through increased business from there.
CAM has to be one of the worst placing in terms of making sure that the employee leaves on good terms. And best part is when two years down the road the partners would be queuing up to get a meeting with the same person they would have ingloriously ignored at the time of their exit. Some Hong Kong based people come to mind when thinking about this.