J Sagar Associates (JSA) Mumbai-based disputes equity partner Ravichandra Hegde will be the fourth JSA partner to leave the firm for independent practice, according to a JSA press release yesterday.

Hegde, a 2004 Karnataka University College of Law graduate, who holds an LLM from Mumbai University, had been at JSA for 11 years now, after having worked with AZB & Partners from 2006 to 2008.

“Counsel practice has always been my dream, and I thought this is the right time,” he explained.

He had been promoted to partnership in February of this year - he said that at 36 years-old he was the youngest equity partner in the firm - and has focused particularly on dispute resolution in the securities, white collar crime space and money laundering.

“Now I’ll be focusing more on everything, not confining myself only to securities litigation,” Hegde said.

He will be finishing the handover of existing matters by next week, and would continue working with JSA on matters where clients required it, and perhaps on other matters too, he said.

He is the third JSA partner to opt for independent counsel practice in recent years, after Somasekhar Sundaresan in 2016, Murali Ananthasivan and Mansoor Ali Shoket.

“I am just walking in their steps,” said Hegde.

JSA’s senior partner Berjis Desai, upon retirement, had also set up his own practice, while ELP managing partner Rohan Shah had opted for independent tax practice.

Advaita co-founding partner Sujit Ghosh had left in July to pursue independent arguing counsel ambitions, Wadia Ghandy partner Kunal Vajani left in April to start a chambers, and DSK partner Balbir Singh left DSK in 2015, eventually becoming a senior counsel.

Back in 2014, JSA partner Promod Nair also opted for independent practice.