Trio breaks away from A&O's Indian alliance firm
Allen & Overy's (A&O) Indian referral firm, Trilegal, has lost three of its 10 partners, with the trio leaving to set up an independent firm with a senior banking partner from Indian firm Kochhar & Co.
Trilegal's Delhi-based junior equity partners Abhishek Saxena, who focuses on project finance, corporate and capital markets work, and Saket Shukla, who works on corporate, insurance partner and technology matters, have left the firm along with Mumbai corporate and finance partner Sawant Singh. They will be joined by former Kochhar & Co senior partner and banking specialist Manjula Chawla.
The new firm, called Phoenix Legal, will specialise in corporate and finance work. The intention is that the firm will have 10 associates by the end of the month, including at least three from Trilegal.
Trilegal founding partner Anand Prasad said: "These were great guys, we all enjoyed working with them and we'd love to still have them around. But I guess we were set up as a lockstep system and they probably just wanted to get to the top a lot faster and decided to set up a replica of Trilegal."
Saxena, Shukla and Singh joined Trilegal as associates when it was founded eight years ago and were made up to the equity around two years ago.
In addition to its five founding partners, Trilegal is left with two partners that were made up this year and around 100 other lawyers. The firm operates a 13-year lockstep for the five founding partners and a 10-year lockstep for new partners.
A&O formally entered into a non-exclusive referral relationship with Trilegal earlier this year, promising the Indian firm training, know-how and work (TheLawyer.com, 22 February 2008). Trilegal currently has one associate seconded to A&O.
A&O's India head Alex Pease said: "We're very happy with the arrangement with Trilegal, it is going extremely well. The referral arrangement we have is with those founding partners who are still there and who continue to provide in-depth coverage in all the sectors and geographical areas that we need to cover."
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Readers' comments (17)
Anonymous | 16-Oct-2008 1:21 pm
Survival
I will be interested to see how long they survive in the wild.
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Anonymous | 16-Oct-2008 3:45 pm
Typical Indian law firm
This phenomena is typical of Indian firms. They don't let you grow fast enough and ultimately they suffer with quality people leaving.
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Anonymous | 16-Oct-2008 3:58 pm
Wake up call?
Mr. Pease says it all. The deal was only with the 5 who stayed back. No wonder the others left. The newer lot should get worried...
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Anonymous | 16-Oct-2008 4:20 pm
Personal fiefdom
Sounds a bit like a certain offshore law firm out in the Atlantic...
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Anonymous | 16-Oct-2008 5:02 pm
These three conquered the wild....
I have no doubts about their ability to survive, and do much better than just survive. The last decade has been spent in the wildest parts of the legal world, so its unlikely that the future will have anything more difficult to throw at them...
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Noah | 16-Oct-2008 5:34 pm
Sometime soon
When Indian lawyers see how many opportunities are presented by international firms it's just a matter of time before they liberalise. The present regime is held up by vested interests dominating law societies, but the vested interests of a minority can't hold back the majority for ever - India is still a democracy, after all.
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Market watcher | 16-Oct-2008 5:47 pm
A&O Strategy
Wonder whether A&O should be rethinking anout its strategy to pay a premium to only a few owner-partners and expect these owner-partners to deliver a quality team when the market opens up in India. Chances are that they will end up getting just the owner-partners along with a lot of juniors and would have paid a premium for nothing... The strategy of Linklaters seems more prudent in these circumstances.
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Anonymous | 16-Oct-2008 8:08 pm
International law firm
New lot are fronting for one more international firm. Greed is good.
Remaining partners are bigger names
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Anonymous | 17-Oct-2008 5:31 am
All the best
There's definitely space for more law firms offering quality work to clients. The move should be seen as a gain for the legal sector rather than a good or bad one from individual firms' perspective! We wish Phoenix Legall all the very best!
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Anonymous | 17-Oct-2008 4:44 pm
Factual Inaccuracies
I am surprised on the comment on how the new firm would survive in the wild. Probably Mr. Anonymous has little knowledge about the capabilities of the 4 partners. If Manjula could bring great success to the Kochhar firm, there is no reason why she cannot do it again with the help of other capable partners.
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