JSA Mumbai partner Roy and TTA managing associate Kumar have now joined as Alliance Legal equity founding partners together with Jerome, who had planned to start up a new law firm after his departure from AZB as first reported by Legally India in June.

Jerome said that although he had a “wonderful” seven years at AZB he had always wanted to do something on his own. “I did think that there was a space for a quality work product for different segments of the market although it could still mean a top name client.”

Since setting up with Shameek Ray, who had left AZB as a senior associate in November 2010 to work independently, Jerome said that some work had begun to flow, in particular in finance and early-stage venture capital (VC) investment work for young companies and funds.

Roy, who graduated from NLSIU Bangalore in 2000 – two batches ahead of 2002 pass-outs Jerome and Kumar – started her career at ICICI Bank focusing on finance and later spent time at Amarchand Mangaldas. She moved to JSA in 2006 to specialise in corporate and M&A work and joined Alliance yesterday (1 September).

Kumar who started as an Alliance equity partner last month, had also spent time at Amarchand Mangaldas and then moved on to TTA in Mumbai, where he focused primarily on M&A, private equity and funds work. He was not reachable for comment at the time of going to press.

Roy said: “Ravi, Vishnu and I have known each other for many years from law school and we’re friends and we’re likeminded in that we have similar experiences in the workplace and we have worked with some of the biggest law firms in the country.”

“We saw that there was a space in the country for, I guess, the next wave of what you can call new age firms. We are extremely quality conscious and at the same time are trying to retain a youthful and inclusive atmosphere for all our associates,” she said.

Jerome agreed that Alliance would aim for a partner to associate ratio of only one to three, where a smaller number of deals would be taken on per partner. “What we’d like to be is a quality shop where there is focused partner attention.”

Alliance Legal has taken 850 square feet offices in the Lower Parel area.

JSA Mumbai partner Akshay Chudasama commented: “The market is large enough to absorb good quality firms and we wish them all the best in their new endeavour.” TTA partner Feroz Dubash said: “We think it is an exciting opportunity for Ravi and we wish him the best.”