TURMOIL IN INDIAN LEGAL SERVICE INDUSTRY

The Indian legal services industry has never quite seen the turmoil that it has experienced in 2016.

In less than three months to date, nearly as many law firm partner-level senior lawyers have moved as in the entire 2013-14 financial year.

If it continues at the same pace—and a lot of observers are predicting that it will—the 2016-17 financial year could see 150 partners moving to rival law firms, going independent or in-house.

That would be 50% more lateral movement than the record-setting previous year, which infamously saw the break-up of India’s largest law firm—Amarchand Mangaldas Suresh A Shroff & Co.—into two entities, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) and Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM), and it’s triple of the 2013-14 tally.

But more has changed than just the extent of people movement or the overt aggression between competing firms. The dynamics of the market now seem fundamentally and irretrievably different.

Overview

For instance, large law firms’ founding partners or major rainmakers seem to be retiring increasingly in order to pursue independent counsel practice.

Economic Laws Practice’s Rohan Shah announced last week that he would join the bar. J. Sagar Associates’ star securities partner Somasekhar Sundaresan did so in March and Trilegal co-founder Anand Prasad in February.

Other than a sign of talented lawyers wanting to try out something new, these moves also give a sense of an increased maturity of the market, in which the youngest generation of larger law firms seem to be strong enough to stand on their own feet.

Couple that with the common but uncertainly-held belief of most lawyers that foreign law firms’ ambitions of setting up shop in India may finally actually happen this year or may be next, and we are faced with a perfect lateral storm.

Insight

AZB Mumbai has through the years faced consistent attrition and poaching of senior- and mid-level corporate partners such as senior partner Abhijit Joshi, who set up his own firm Veritas, as well as younger generation partners such as Vaishali Sharma, Vishnu Jerome, Essaji Vahanvati, and, most recently, Shuva Mandal, who was hired into SAM’s new Mumbai office.

While some of these wouldn’t have worried AZB excessively, as Mody still directly or indirectly pulls in most of the revenue, the gaps in AZB’s line-up were noticeable.

At that point, CAM must have begun looking like one of the few remaining alternative sources of Mumbai corporate bench strength that can also come with a significant book of business.

Insight

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