Neha Sinha, who was made partner at L&L Partners (formerly Luthra & Luthra) in 2017, has joined Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas in a boost to its corporate practice, together with Trilegal counsel Karun Prakash, who is joining as a partner designate.
According to SAM’s press release, Sinha has over 10 years of experience in M&A, private equity and venture capital work, having worked on “significant domestic and cross-border acquisitions and structuring of onshore and offshore PE / VC investments and exits”.
The 2008 Symbiosis Pune LLB had begun her career with Nishith Desai Associates, which she had left in 2015 for Luthra.
Prakash has around 10 years of experience, and also focuses on M&A, PE and general corporate work.
He is a 2009 ILS Pune graduate who had worked briefly with Paras Kuhad & Associates before joining Dua Associates in 2010.
In 2013, he had moved to Trilegal.
Commenting on their hires, as well as the addition of Link Legal finance partner Anurag Dwivedi in Delhi, whose move we had reported yesterday, Delhi-region managing partner Pallavi Shroff said: “They are valuable additions to the team and will help us further strengthen our general corporate and projects and project finance practices. There are huge opportunities ahead of us.”
Trilegal’s counsel ranks - perhaps reflecting the difficulty of making it into its tight all-equity partnership - have been a steady supplier of talent to other firms (while the firm has barely ever lost partners).
Luthra, on the other hand, has had a hard time holding on to its corporate partners, despite recent efforts to laterally bolster the practice area with three hires in the last year, after a slip in M&A league table rankings and a string of departures in its corporate practice.
Comments
Luthra reminds me of Kodak and Nokia, who failed to evolve with time and ultimately went bust. A mere name change would not help at all. The two senior partners would have to cede control and incentivise lawyers by rolling out equity (something which the management has been deliberating for 7/8 years now but is yet to take shape!). Let the young guns like VK, BJ, and ML assume charge, bring about changes in policies to ensure transparency, look beyond their nonsensical policy of hiring top ranked from only a select few law schools but go for merit and competence. Let’s see how long the “executive committee” takes to realise this.
Big man needs to reign in the rogues and focus on rebuilding the lost kingdom.. what with Mr. 15 % back in town!