Praxis Counsel co-founding partner Hemant Singh has left the five-partner electricity and regulatory firm with the bulk of its fee-earners to start a new regulatory firm called Charter Law Chambers.

Singh said he would start operating from tomorrow under the new name, with an office in Defence Colony and a team of seven fee-earners from the electricity team, who have agreed to join him from Praxis.

The new firm would primarily focus on electricity regulatory work, he said, with clients including Adani Power, GMR, Sembcorp, Vedanta and Jindal Power. Singh said he would continue to represent clients such as these before the Appellate Tribunal For Electricity (Aptel), where he had 60 reported judgments to his name, as well as high courts and the Supreme Court.

As for why he decided to go independent, he cited “professional” reasons.

The firm also had a lot of existing clients in Mumbai and power companies based Bhubaneswar, so opening up small satellite offices may be on the cards going forward, said Singh.

He is a 2007 graduate of University School of Law & Legal Studies of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, and had begun his career at Vaish Associates for a year, followed by Inttl Advocare until 2009 and then Praxis Partners.

Praxis Partners was the sole proprietorship of Sanjay Sen, but had closed when Sen took up the gown in 2013 to become senior counsel.

Praxis Counsel is the spiritual successor firm that was set up by some of the senior members of Sen’s team: Singh, Shikha Ohri Vashishth and Matrugupta Mishra re-started the firm in 2014 as co-founding partners under the modified name.

“We wish him all the best,” Mishra commented about Singh’s departure. Mishra had begun his practice in 2005 and specialises in litigation and various regulatory work, and said that Praxis would continue with him and Ohri (a 2007 graduate energy regulatory lawyer) as equity partners, and two associate partners Biju Mattam (1999 graduate, specialising in litigation) and Pradeep Tiwari (who is focusing on corporate work). Two senior associates and two associates also remained within Praxis, he added, and one more senior associate and two associates would be joining the firm in early March.

Praxis would continue focusing on energy, regulatory, mining, civil commercial, corporate, competition and infrastructure work, stated Mishra.

The electricity and infrastructure regulatory space remains a buoyant practice area with potentially high margin work due to the size of disputes, which has powered the growth of law firms such as Hemant Sahai Associates and built lucrative practices such as that of J Sagar Associates (JSA) co-managing partner Amit Kapur.