Trilegal has continued expanding its finance footprint, with J Sagar Associates (JSA) corporate and finance retained partner Pallavi Banerjee having been hired to join as a counsel in Mumbai, we reliably understand.
The 2013 NUJS Kolkata graduate had been promoted to retained partner at JSA in April.
Banerjee specialises in banking and finance debt, syndicated lending, domestic and external commercial borrowings, security creation and regulation. She also advises on private equity and corporate work.
We have reached out to JSA and Trilegal for comment.
Trilegal has been working hard on growing its finance practice, with Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas banking and finance department partners Pranav Sharma and Mallika Chopra having been voted into Trilegal’s all-equity partnership on Friday.
Comments
Dont know about the JSA lawyer here but could it not br on a case to case basis ? Or maybe she realised partnership is not her thing ? Who knows. Kian- maybe get a quote from her asking why a counsel position is more enticing than partnership? This to my mind is unprecedented (uneducated guess) that a partner is moving to another indian firm (not drastically different in stature/tier) with a designation demotion ?
In this case there are multiple factors that could be in play:
(i) JSA is not considered tier-1 anymore in most critical practice areas (thought banking was an exception!);
(ii) The concerned person may be making more as a counsel than as a non-equity partners at JSA (most banking deals are fixed fee matters and the 12% bill share may not be remunerative enough);
(iii) Trilegal partnership follows a lock step model, which means only equity once you are a partner (biggest selling point as to why people move to Trilegal as partner).
Jab mujhe offer mila thaa tab le lena chahiye thaa :-/
JSA has a culture of - if you dont bend to the stick or play along with the politics of others, we will oust you. Doesn't matter if that is good or bad for the firm in the long run. Our views are as lawyers, and it feels bad when other people have taken bonuses from your hard work. But even the clients have told me negative feedback, how the firm was an entirely different place previously, and they are happy only with few practice areas.
Aashit and Anish were worried who will sign their invoices now, and who to ask for views on complex FEMA matters. I hope they will find someone because the void is huge.