King Stubb Kasiva opens Bangalore proper, aims for Ahmedabad in a year

Friday, 13 July 2012 By Legally India Law firms

King Stubb managing partner Kumar: Going national, quietly

Exclusive: King Stubb & Kasiva (KSK) has launched a full-fledged Bangalore office on 1 July as it is aiming to open in Ahmedabad by this time next year.

The firm had been “active” in Bangalore since 2010 from a “small set-up” said managing partner Jidesh Kumar, mainly supported by Delhi and Chennai, but since July it became a standalone operation. The new office is headed by Kumar, Delhi intellectual property practice partner of two years, Deepesh Ahuja, and Delhi tax partner of more than four years Neeraj Vora.

Kumar said: “We have been active in Bangalore, [handling] private equity funds, large MNCs [multinational corporations] and real estate work. Now we’re looking at expanding. We’ve added tax, IPR, and information technology, some bit of projects and finance”.

The office on Lavelle Road overlooks the Bangalore Club and currently consists 14 lawyers, three of whom relocated from the Delhi and Chennai offices. Eleven other lawyers were fresh hires, said Kumar, with a mix coming from other firms or litigation.

Kumar said he planned hiring around 12 further associates in Bangalore by December, though not at the fresher level.

“We have a policy not to take freshers at all. Our first year associates have a minimum experience of two years. We take lawyers who have been trained in large law firms or international law firms, who have hit the ceiling and wish to try and explore working in niche areas,” he said.

He told Legally India that the firm’s clients included Fortune 100 companies, seven Fortune 20 companies in India and around 80 large Indian corporations, including group companies of the Tatas, Reliance, Max, and Dabur, as well as many foreign and domestic banks.

Ahmedabad looked promising to KSK in the banking and infrastructure space and was seeing a “lot of activity”, noted Kumar. “We are leaders in automobile ancillaries in India, and I am also on the board of several automobile companies.”

Bangalore is the fourth office of the firm, which was started in Delhi in 2006. KSK set up shop in Chennai in 2007 and opened in Mumbai in 2010, and now has 78 lawyers across its four offices; Delhi is the largest with 34 lawyers.

Rajesh Sivaswami heads the Delhi practice, Ravi Ramanathan heads Chennai, and Farah Sheikh will head Mumbai.

The firm presently currently consisted of 17 partners, with 12 holding equity, according to Kumar, who added that he hoped KSK to grow to 20 partners by the end of the year.

Comments

HaSecret? 13 Jul 2012, 02:16

+5 -3

Whats the story behind their name? And may just be me, but with 78 lawyers they are bound to be amongst the 5 largest firms in the country but I havent ever heard of them!

x 13 Jul 2012, 04:50

+1 -2

yup, kian - name, size, history. who are these guys?

anon 13 Jul 2012, 07:38

+4 -1

The notable difference is that the money required to pay salaries to their 78 lawyers EQUALS TO the money required to pay salaries of 15 lawyers at leading firms !!

Harishchandra 13 Jul 2012, 05:13

+1 -0

Yeah, where did these guys come from? Never heard of them and they r pretty large. Kian, give us some more background pls. How well do they pay? Who r their clients? major deals?

Anon 13 Jul 2012, 06:39

+14 -1

From the picture put up, it appears that they need to buy new editions of Ramaiya!

Legal 500 13 Jul 2012, 08:50

Being such a big firm why have you not subscribed to us?

anon 13 Jul 2012, 10:07

+0 -0

because you charge to list and are not genuine...our firm also has not sibscribed to you.

Uh, you know how to Google? 13 Jul 2012, 10:24

http://www.legal500.com/firms/32698/33731

ANON 13 Jul 2012, 08:59

So what if none of you have heard about them. They are the best law firm south of the Vindhyas. Terrific lawyers all of them.

Hilarious 13 Jul 2012, 10:05

Hahaha "south of the Vindhyas"! Kian, you really need to do a story on this firm. Sounds like the information they have provided you is far from accurate. Are these lawyers they have employed or some consultants on paper??

hahahah 13 Jul 2012, 10:06

Valid observation Anon

Fact check? 13 Jul 2012, 10:14

LI - key question - did you do a fact check or just believe what these guys said in an interview or press release? These facts do not appear authentic and as journalists you need to be a bit more careful.

INteresting 13 Jul 2012, 10:46

+3 -0

This is Jidesh Kumar's LInkedin profile http://in.linkedin.com/pub/jidesh-kumar/6/417/a19

Evidently Jidesh's USP is "High premium on providing preemptive legal support in English." Wow!

? 13 Jul 2012, 13:49

Hahaha. Jidesh has promptly changed the linkedin profile!!! :D

hahahaha 13 Jul 2012, 16:22

I learnt law from Jidesh sir and whatever little I know of law is from him, he is extremely alert and that has made him what he is today.You must also be one of those lawyers who learn English in a law firm and not in schools, hence partners needs to spend a lot of time teaching English than practicing law.

? 13 Jul 2012, 10:51

Why are the words "active" and "small set-up" in quotes. Is that LIs way of telling us not to believe what is being said!

kianganz 13 Jul 2012, 11:31

+2 -0

No, the quote marks just mean that he used those words verbatim, since we didn't elaborate further what that meant exactly.

I am surprised there is such a strong reaction - does anyone have any evidence for doubts about any assertions made?

We do have to take some things we are told at face value but should there be any specific reason to doubt those claims, apart from the fact that KSK is less well known and we've only written about KSK once in the last three years?

There are also many other firms in India's legal ecosystem I've never or barely heard of that are rather large or successful. And KSK's relative lack of visibility could also have to do with their assertion that they don't hire freshers, which could clearly take them off the radars of many lawyers.

Fact checking in such a case, unless we have some tangible reason to disbelieve a managing partner, is easier said than done. Short of visiting a firms' offices and counting every associate, or calling up a large number out of the blue, generally we'll have to believe in good faith what we're told.

If we later find out, and we usually do, that a firm has been fudging its figures that'd be fairly embarrassing for all involved.

Best wishes,
Kian

hahahah 13 Jul 2012, 12:47

And there is one Rajesh Sivaswamy http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=13195744&pid=18945525&authType=name&authToken=9Dz8&trk=pbmap who claims to be the owner of the firm. Really fishy i say

kianganz 13 Jul 2012, 12:57

FYI, nothing fishy here- law firm equity partners on Linked-in often often describe themselves as 'owners' of firms, which legally would be entirely accurate.

I still don't think anything "fishy" has been pointed out in this thread, but if anyone has any particular knowledge, please contact me directly and I will be happy to discuss confidentially.

Best wishes
Kian

hahahaha 13 Jul 2012, 16:15

what's your linkedin profile...let us see...ha ha ha

PE GC 13 Jul 2012, 16:10

Congrats Jidesh and team...I have had the opportunity of working with Jidesh and retaining him on at least four recent investments made by our fund. He is one of the finest structuring lawyers in India...all the very best..

hmm 14 Jul 2012, 04:54

So why had King Stubb and Kasiva not reported a single one of these deals to LI or any other source? could be that they are pulicity shy, but surely if they can come to LI with opening of a new office, they would have reported "at least" one of the "four recent investments".

Max New York Lifer 13 Jul 2012, 16:13

Congrats on your Bangalore office. They have one of the finest litigation teams in India. We use them regularly for all important matters and they have a solution all the times. Congrats once again...Don't bother about the meaningless comments provided above

Coke4 13 Jul 2012, 16:14

Used them on a real estate transaction and found their diligence very sound and will use them for more transactions..all the very best Jidesh and team...keep up the good work!!!

Elementary Watson 13 Jul 2012, 18:40

+16 -0

Posts 10.2 and 11-13 seem to be from the same person. There is a pattern in the writing style. The use of ellipses ("...") is a give away.

Spot on Watson 14 Jul 2012, 04:45

+6 -0

So right Watson. And there is absolutely no way a PE General Counsel or an in house from Max New York (who anyways use AZB for all matters) would have given such comments on this forum. Now at least you may suspect something Kian?

watson..not sherlock 14 Jul 2012, 17:37

you must check info and then write. Ksk handles majority lit for mnyl..

web Police 16 Jul 2012, 11:15

[quote name="Elementary Watson"]Posts 10.2 and 11-13 seem to be from the same person. There is a pattern in the writing style. The use of ellipses ("...") is a give away.[/quote]

It is clear that comments 11, 12 and 13 are by the firm itself. Kian, you should edit it.

Outsourcing 14 Jul 2012, 05:02

Here are links which list KSK as a leading outsourcing company in India.

http://www.ezdia.com/epad/legal-outsourcing-companies-business-process-development/4390/

http://www.ezdia.com/epad/legal-outsourcing-companies-business-process-development/4390/

http://www.myjobservation.com/fresh-law-graduate-jobs-in-legal-process-outsourcinglpo-india/

This perhaps explains why they have 78 lawyers which makes total sense. Kian, a simple google search can help you find these and put the right questions (which is what journalism is about) - you dont need to go to their offices.

ksk inside39 14 Jul 2012, 17:35

Kian, so many people commenting without any information about the firm. Its a shame these people have nothing else to do.

Please consider LI 17 Jul 2012, 04:52

Read this LI - http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_dark_knight_rises/news/1925558/the_dark_knight_rises_--_this_is_why_we_cant_have_nice_things/

Perhaps you will be encouraged by Rotten Tomatoes stand that "- We're probably going to move to a Facebook-based commenting system that doesn't allow for anonymity. You'll have to stand by your comments, just like a critic does. So you'll still be able to argue about a movie you haven't seen, but people will know it was you. (I know that won't make a difference for some people, but at least there may be some measure of responsibility).
"

But again, you like trolls dont you? I really think you need to move to a system where people identify themselves (at least by email) - for the sake of your websites integrity. I know you will say that people will create fake email ids, but then your readers are smart enough to distinguish between a genuine email id and something like "legalgossip@gmail". Do consider this.

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