Cyril Shroff, who will launch his take on Amarchand Mangaldas today with new partnership Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, has confirmed the lateral hires made so far and partner moves to Delhi, while revealing that he planned to spend around half his time in Delhi in the first 12 months of the office.
Shroff said: “Both Vandana and I are going to be there 2 or 3 days a week [on average] for at least 12 months. 50% of my time (will be) in Delhi. Some weeks which need me, some weeks which need Vandana.”
He added that two Mumbai partners – partner and Mumbai region tax head SR Patnaik and projects and regulatory partner Ramanuj Kumar – would relocate to his new Delhi office at the end of May. The Delhi office would open doors for business on 1 June.
Direct tax specialist Patnaik had joined Amarchand Mumbai from Luthra & Luthra Delhi in 2013, having practiced since 1994, including as a chartered accountant for Luthra & Luthra Chartered Accountants between 2000 and 2008.
Kumar is a projects lawyer who graduated from NLSIU Bangalore in 2004, holds a 2008 Harvard Law School LLM and was promoted to partner in Mumbai in 2013.
Some departments will be smaller - capital markets will be bigger practice over here in Mumbai but since we operate as one firm, it doesn’t matter whether they’re in Bombay or Delhi
For the first time, Shroff confirmed the accuracy of all of the partner or senior level hires reported by Legally India to date since March 2015, namely:
- Dhir & Dhir partner Rahul Goel
- Kochhar partner Manishi Pathak
- AZB Delhi partner Ritika Rathi
- Clasis IP head Ashwin Sapra
- MNK Law Offices partners Gyanendra Kumar, Anuradha Mukherjee and Srinivas Kilambi
- Citi consultant Gokul Rajan & Jones Day associate Nikhil Naredia
- Kochhar & Co partners Harry Chawla and Niti Paul
- Gnarus Partners founder Rishi Anand
- Khaitan associate partner Harsh Kumar
- Raghuram Raju (ex-Dua Associates partner, ex-GC of Religare)
- Luthra & Luthra partner Piyush Mishra
- Khaitan & Co Delhi partner Gauri Rasgotra; and Economic Laws Practice (ELP) partner Kirat Singh Nagra.
Shroff said that some “very senior people” had been hired in Delhi so far. “The (average) age group of partners in Delhi is about 8 to 10 years more senior to the ones in Bombay. Bombay are a lot of young partners – therefore I think there’ll be some plus and minus – they’ll be more mature, but at the same time they’ll have stronger views on things.”
12 more partners, aims for 90 lawyer headcount in Delhi
“There are about a further dozen (lateral hire partners) in the works,” he added.
These hires June or July of this year would take the new Delhi office up to a 28 to 30 partner-level headcount, alongside a 91 lawyer headcount (including partners), said Shroff.
The total headcount across all offices (including the “legacy Amarchand Mumbai region” and campus hires who will join in coming months), would be 589 to 590 fee-earners, including 91 partners nationally.
“The ones (lateral hires) already out in the open, they have already all met in a group and the chemistry was fabulous,” added Shroff. “We got all of them together (about 14 days ago) and had dinner and they got along like a house on fire…
“It’s not a work environment – but it’s a good start.”
Until the office was fully set up on 1 June, partners who had already started in Delhi would work from home.
In addition to several new partners who “come with a book which will travel with them”, said Shroff, more junior Delhi partners who were good at execution would also work on Mumbai-centric work.
“It’s a misnomer to think if you are based in Delhi you should only work for Delhi clients. [We are] going to staff Delhi partners on Bombay matters and vice versa.”
“We want to function like a location agnostic firm,” said Shroff. “It’s the opposite of what has been happening.”
Shardul Shroff is the brother of Cyril Shroff and the former co-managing partner of pre-break-up Amarchand Mangaldas alongside Cyril.
Shardul launched his new firm Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas yesterday.
Cyril Shroff was speaking as part of an in-depth 60 minute interview with Legally India on the firm’s strategy, other parts of which will be published in Mint tomorrow.
Comments
Was just wondering why is there silence from the other big gun.
Many may see this as shardul unready for the new system.
Which is a pity really considering he was the one who had the upper hand when all this started
Shardul is giving press interviews today... Will publish as soon as information is available.
SAM branding etc ready. Associates and Partners had a grand party at the Hyatt yesterday. Also all members have received goody bags today with new firm materials, branded biz cards, branded power banks, t-shirt and coffee mugs. CAM nothing.
Who did you say is unready??
Business comes from proper teams and team efforts. It is clear who is focusing on what.
“It's a misnomer to think if you are based in Delhi you should only work for Delhi clients. [We are] going to staff Delhi partners on Bombay matters and vice versa.”"
This is the simple statement of the truth of Indian law firm partnerships - most are simply (over/under)paid "employees". Wear the tag and bill more...wag the tail and get more.
Question: How is someone without a "book" even a "Partner"??
Answer: Simply because he/she is in the good "books" of the Promoter (aka Managing Partner).
Sadly, this model ain't going too far in raising the bar for the profession in this country!
In fact, we actually tend to be quite picky about interview targets, in that there usually needs to be a news hook or something else that justifies a big interview since doing an interview properly is also a significant time investment for us.
You'll actually find that the Shroffs during the mediation were showing everyone the cold shoulder, as they were required to do under the terms of the mediation, I believe...
Our moderation policies are fairly clear - criticism of law firms' head honchos is generally permitted (as long as not defamatory) and I think the Shroffs are mature and battle-hardened enough to be able to take criticism, even if it comes anonymously on a website...
Here is the sneak preview counterpart interview with Shardul:
http://www.legallyindia.com/Law-firms/shardul-amarchand-bombay-bangalore-plans
We'll be publishing a fuller version shortly in a bit.
1. I consider LI a paper of record for the legal industry and a one-stop shop someone should go to if they want to know what's going on in most sectors. If someone else reports a piece of news first, we'll document that report and give due credit before it disappears into a paywalled garden, so that people can continue to find the information if they need it without paying for it.
2. We don't usually republish things that are iffy or thinly sourced and in more complex stories, such as Shroff v Shroff, we usually err on the side of caution and double check with our own sources before re=publishing.
I think you'll find that in retrospect our track record on [url]http://www.legallyindia.com/tag/shroff-vs-shroff[/url] stories has been pretty much 100% in the last six months :)
Could you enlighten on CAM's Ahmedabad office?