Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas has scooped Cognizant Technology Solutions India & APAC region general counsel (GC) Anand Bhushan to set and head up its new Chennai office after he fully leaves a little later this month, according to three authoritative sources.
Chennai-based Bhushan had resigned from Cognizant in April of this year, as first reported by us back then, but he’s been tight lipped about his destination declining to comment for the past months.
We have reached out to Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas for comment but not heard back.
Bhushan was the first person to join the fast-growing tech start-up’s legal department in 2007 and by 2013 had built the Cognizant team up to a team of 70 people, he had said in a 2013 interview .
He holds a 2002 LLB from Dr Ambedkar Law University Tamil Nadu and an LLM as a Fulbright scholar in corporate and cyber laws from Case Western Reserve University School of Law in the US He practised independently for five years, when he was a consultant for companies Bharatmatrimony, Jaya TV, Aurofood, SAAG RR Infra, and FL Smidth.
Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas had opened an office in Bangalore in April with Karthik Mahalingam from Omidyar Network.
This is another piece of news was first revealed in our exclusive subscriber-only newsletter last week, and foreshadowed several weeks before that when talks first started. To be kept in an even tighter loop and to support us financially (other than just with your good wishes), please subscribe below.
Comments
He's also generally one of the more well-known GCs...
I am not saying he is a nutjob or that he is incompetent, only that such an 'achievement' proves very little.
You really should discuss your headlines with a technical committee of indian lawyers before using hyperbole
~ those who failed to land prestigious law firm jobs
~ those who've decided they can't work as hard as in a law firm
~ those who are passed over at law firms
~ female lawyers recovering from maternity
That's not surprising since no inhouse lawyer is ever in a pressure situation regarding good legal advice. Sure, they do a lot of managing, award deals to firms and strut their roles but nobody's fooled. End of the day an MD would still value external advice over internal advice.
As to ass kissing, there's enough and more of that in companies as well.
Some GCs are successful lawyers at firms or practitioners before joing as GC and hats off to them. However this guy doesnt fall into that category
As a generalisation I would say he's a good inhouse lawyer and maybe a "star" among the inhouse lawyers but quite far from being a star among lawyers generally.
- those who failed to land a seat in an IIT .
- those who failed to make it to any decent engineering/medical school
- those who decided they cant work hard enough to do the difficult IIT entrance exams
- those who were too dumb to study science in school and chose the easy commerce / arts streams
- those who didn't make the cut to even get admission to science stream in school
- mentally disabled students who got too crappy marks in 12th and had to join ILS etc.
Thats not surprising since no lawyer is ever in a situation like say a banker. Sure they do a lot of drudge work like making agreements or doing due diligence (oh so tough), award awards to themselves by paying legal era, legal 500 etc. and strut their roles, but nobody is fooled. End of the day in business, its the business guy's deal. The lawyers are tertiary.
As to ass kissing there is so much to be done by lawyers - of their smarter classmates, who made the cut to IIT / IIM and are now the clients!
Some lawyers are successful students before joining law and hats off to them
As a generalisation I would say you are a good lawyer and maybe a star among the 600 lawyers that work in law firms but quite far from being a star generally, because you know ...you ain't really that smart!
The links to the articles in the experts and views section above, dont seem to be working. You may want to look at that.
Thanks
I still maintain that CAM should have opened up Delhi office to increase revenue and spread their business, instead of "taking the battle to the enemy's territory" attitude -- a slight, but considerable difference in thought.
SAM is also hiring on the basis of performance and revenue. CAM seems to be doing this to either "get back" at others, or hire someone to "show how big we are -- to the enemy in Delhi". I don't understand, why cut off your nose to spite your enemy?
CAM has gone down as an institution. It may not yet be Tier 2, but for sure it is no longer the 1st choice amongst Tier 1.
Sad to see stalwarts in CAM drop the ball at this crucial juncture.