Phukan, who had joined Khaitan around one year ago, will be focusing primarily on corporate and M&A work in starting the Bangalore office for Tempus, which was founded by Sundari Pisupati and P Raviprasad in 2008 who both specialise in corporate work.
Khaitan had been a wonderful place to work, said Phukan, but her entrepreneurial streak drove her to join Pisupati, whom she had always admired. Pisupati was three years Phukan’s senior at NLSIU Bangalore, having graduated in 1993.
Pisupati said she was very happy about Phukan joining, which would create a synergy between Bangalore and Hyderabad, where many clients were already based. They planned to grow to around six lawyers in the city by year-end, she said.
In Hyderabad Tempus now consisted of 18 lawyers, while one senior associate was based in Pune in order to service Tempus’ technology and real estate clients that are based there, she explained.
Pisupati, who had also worked at Sidley Austin in New York after completing an LLM at Columbia in 1998, noted that in future the firm would also focus on bedding down its
Maybe in future, she speculated, other offices could be on the cards, although she said that Mumbai would probably be one of the last places they’d set up in because it was such a competitive market there.
Khaitan Bangalore partner Rajiv Khaitan confirmed Phukan’s departure and commented: “We wish her all the best in her new endeavor.”
Comments
more of grapes gone sour. Come on when the partners pitched their expertise to Khaitan at the time of joining they must have also made certain promises which they could not fulfill. So now the argument is that even if a partner does not meet any target they are still entitled to a slice of the equity?? based on what..talents which could not be proven and if nothing works out blame the family name, the office boy, the vastu in the premises..
and no i dont work for Khaitan but have seen few "non-family" members being rewarded extremely well for nothing else but their work.
You seem to know a lot even though you do not work at Khaitan!
Internationally, practices don't operate in this manner. Target setting is a consultative process and is subjected to correction based on market conditions, personal circumstances etc. that is what true partnerships are about.
Post 9/11, internationally cap mkts' partners' targets were corrected. One has to relaise that being a lawyer is not like being a banker where you are chasing a target number which you must meet. Interestingly, post 9/11 targets in IBs were also reset/moderated.
also, who are the folks who move to B and C firms as partners? Mostly the passed-over guys and girls at AZB and AMSS. These ppl are more often than not below par (relatively) and its not surprising that they fail to perform as per expectation.