Khaitan & Co Mumbai has made two partner-level hires from Thakker & Thakker, which was closed at the end of last year by its founding partner in order to follow philanthropic pursuits full-time.

On 1 January 2011 former Thakker partner and chartered accountant Ketan Kothari, who is not qualified as a lawyer, has joined Khaitan & Co as a partner-level director, while Thakker partner Anand Mehta has joined as a partner.

Both had been at Thakker for more than 10 years and joined with two senior associates. Kothari (pictured top) specialises in international tax structuring, tax advisory and M&A work while Mehta (pictured below) is a transactional M&A lawyer.

They were unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.

“Just after Bijesh [Thakker] announced his intention of winding down his practice and starting his philanthropic practice we started talking with Ketan and then we started talking with Anand thereafter,” explained Khaitan & Co Mumbai partner Rabindra Jhunjhnuwala.

“One of the triggers was [Legally India’s] piece about Thakker & Thakker shutting down, which mentioned how it threw up opportunity of competition to snap up talent and clients. We took that seriously,” he added.

In October of last year Legally India reported that Thakker would shut down the firm which he had co-founded in 1990 to devote himself full-time to a philanthropic project. Thakker was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.

A number of former Thakker associates are understood to have joined other firms and the third remaining non-Thakker-family partner Anisha Patnaik is understood to be currently considering options.