Clifford Chance Singapore capital markets and India group partner Rahul Guptan is set to join White & Case, according to two sources with knowledge of his move.
We understand He has announced his departure from Clifford Chance only recently, so there may be some notice periods to contend with before his move.
We have reached out to White & Case, Clifford Chance and Guptan for comment.
Guptan, who is a 1999 NLSIU Bangalore graduate, was an India BigLaw partner moving abroad before it became more widely fashionable (and accepted) to do so.
At the time, in 2007, when he had left India and what-was-then Amarchand Mangaldas Mumbai for Clifford Chance, Amarchand managing partner Cyril Shroff had told The Lawyer magazine in the UK that international firms were building distrust at an institutional and industrial level by poaching Indian lawyers (though he also added that Amarchand and CC would continue working together, as indeed they did, such as when Guptan advised Indiabulls on its IPO as international counsel and Amarchand handled the domestic legal work).
After Guptan’s departure, Yash Ashar and Arjun Lall took over Amarchand’s capital markets practice.
At White & Case, Guptan will be joining an India group headed by New York partner Nandan Nelivigi (also an NLSIU graduate, from 1993) and also including London-based partner and 2001-NLSIU’ite Dipen Sabharwal, who had made Queen’s Counsel (equivalent to India’s senior counsel designation) in 2019.
White & Case Singapore also has capital markets partner Kaya Proudian.
In 2016, Sidley Singapore poached Jones Day Singapore’s capital markets partner Manoj Bhargava and his team, including counsel Ankit Kashyap, which also effectively transferred all the capital markets mandate and league table credits.
Comments
And given that he saves in SGD, and savings don't convert via PPP (assuming he wants to retire in India), there's absolutely no way he's saved less than them.
I am not sure what the hype is? Shamnad was exceptional. He was a superstar. How many of the others have identities outside of big law firm names? How many of them will have significant clients if they start on their own and if so, why dont they do so. From that batch, the people who I have more respect for are the people who decided to do something on their own and did so successfully - Abhishek Malhotra, Raj (now a senior counsel), the Blr bunch of lawyers who started something like Thimmiah, Manav Nagraj, Uttam, trial lawyers like Jawahar Raja etc. These people made something despite brand names and not because of brand names.
Get over this obsession with big law (that too corporate) and how many zeros are on the paycheck. As long as someone else pays you and you dont pay yourself, you have never made it, whatever the amount on that check is.
I'm not OP and I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with them - but clearly you value people who are independent and who "pay themselves". Getting paid by someone else is not any better or worse, by and of itself, unless you specifically value independence and the idea of building your own brand. Ultimately, there is always a counterparty at the end of of a transaction - whether you call that person your boss or a client.
You are not sure why "Amazed" is amazed because you value something else - independence. And "Amazed" will not understand you, because clearly, they value small sums of money (in the larger existential context), which law firm partners make.
What I'm trying to say is that sab bakchodi hai bhai
Am I a joke to u
Having seen the 1999 batch, they were not in any way outliers- the batches above and below them were equally competent and accomplished. Both 1998 and 2000 have people who've done very well for themselves. Not naming names, since that is pointless. This batch did very well financially, since they joined law firms right when the Indian economy was growing exponentially (track the Sensex and correlate it), but as everyone will point out, they can hardly be singled out.
Sad to see that LI Comments are now getting into a "Which is the greatest NLS batch ever" fight. Those are the kind of comments you grow out of in your second batch at NLS.
It's actually considered rude.