Nivedita Tiwari, who had resigned from Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) in April, is due to join Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM), we reliably understand.
At the time of her departure from CAM, she had not yet joined another firm.
We have reached out to her, SAM and CAM for comment.
Tiwari specialises in corporate, M&A and private equity, having bolstered CAM’s practice in Delhi in 2015 from Platinum Partners, after a short stint at MNK Law Offices.
She had begun her career at AZB & Partners in 2003 after an LLB from Delhi University, moving to Luthra in 2005 where she had made partner in 2011 before moving to MNK Law Offices in 2013.
As reported yesterday, CAM in Delhi will also be losing its head and AZB & Partners lateral hire Percy Billimoria, who will start his independent counsel practice.
However, long-time SAM Delhi corporate partner Akila Aggarwal will be joining CAM in Delhi by August.
Comments
"Managing partner Cyril Shroff confirmed her leaving, and commented that she was “going with our blessings”.
We understand that her next move is not yet finalised."
Cyril quote: "Nivedita is leaving to go in house and goes with our blessing and full support."
As a policy, whenever general statements are made about a leaving partner's destination, we usually don't publish these unless it's confirmed by the leaving partner themselves or if we can get a second independent source to confirm it.
The perennial problem in the legal market lies with exit negotiations at most big firms, in which a leaving partner often intentionally does not even consider offers from other firms until they are cleanly out of the old place, thereby avoiding politics and an over-complicated / lengthened notice period.
Nivedita: Mauka :-)
Though the package would be more interesting
(a) what is the reason for such frequent movements?
(b) why do you want to join us?
(c) are you looking to stick around for long or this is just an interim jump?
These guys move whenever they want to, man! How unfair BUT such is life.
Percy leaving CAM somehow means CAM is sinking when similar predictions weren't made about SAM when Shuva left (or AZB for that matter). And doesn't matter how great a lawyer Percy is, to think that a litigation partner exit has the same impact on a corporate law firm as their star GC partner leaving is just illogical.
[...] But since it's CAM, comments section is showing hate like an overflowing garbage can. And yet if you see the number of lawyers clamoring to join CAM it seems like no matter what people say in the comment section, they still want to work there.
And lastly, amongst Cyril, Shardul and [...] (since he has to be mentioned in every SINGLE Cam related story), it's obvious who is the sharpest legal mind - and if you're a lawyer and it's not obvious to you then please consider going back to law school. If despite having greater legal acumen, CAM cannot succeed we should all introspect what went wrong with Indian legal profession.
Now where is the cliff, the other lemmings await
Peninsula neighbor
Translation: no point in regretting when the bird has eaten the grain and left the field.
Interpretation: She got away!!
2. If clients and teams keep moving with the partner - is it not unsettling for them ? What if other teams like competition were supporting the m and a matter - and client is comfortable with competition team but m and a partner moving forces them to move ?
3. Kian pls do a study on targets of all big law firms at Partner level
4. Equity promotions and process remains opaque at most law firms why ?
left Azb because she married Anil Chandra. So technically this great scrutiny of yours should apply to 4 law firms in 15 years? 1. Luthra (where she spent 8 years and which witnessed 11
Partners leaving) 2. MNK (which dissolved soon after), Platinum (abandoned by its own managing partner :) and CAM Delhi (a sinking ship).
For once, let's do something positive.
It's time law firms in India realise that when they support a partner, for every Re spent they are making more than 300% profit. Which other business has such margins? Yet they behave in such uncouth and petty fashion. It's time for a major attitudinal shift for law fimrs. They msut shift from being just a family led or a few or one partner led model to more Big 4 and International law firm models.
Meanwhile, these kind of musical chairs will continue. Partners will keep coming and going and eventually the firms of today will die a slow death.
I know of at least two Tier-1 firms (not SAM or CAM) that insist that all their lawyers travel economy on domestic routes. I don't see why this is a problem, given how much clients gripe over out of pocket expenses and given that the average flying time across India is about 2 hours. Premium economy / front-row seats in budget airlines are fairly comfy for a 2 or even a 3 hour flight.