Is this a sign that partners working in the AP region see more future in up and coming local firms than the magic circle giants…
The (UK) Lawyer reports…
Two partners from Linklaters have resigned to join its Indian best friend firm Talwar Thakore & Associates (TTA) as equity partners.
Linklaters Singapore project finance partner Narayan Iyer and Hong Kong corporate partner Kunal Thakore will become equity partners at TTA Mumbai from 1 December.
TTA has also completed its conversion from a founder partner equity model to a lockstep-style model that is closely modelled on Linklaters? own 10-year lockstep .
TTA co-founding partner Shobhan Thakore said that he was very happy about the new joiners. ?Suresh [Talwar] and I have been around all these years but we?ve obviously never been exposed to the sense of working in an international firm or dealing with large international clients.
?And that is largely the expertise that they will bring, apart from the obvious, from on-the-spot training for all the associates that we have.?
However, he added that the idea was not to ?put a freeze on recruitment and just take Linklaters lawyers? but that the firm would continue to recruit domestic lawyers, even it it would take longer.
Linklaters core India group now consists of around 20 lawyers and two partners after the departure of Iyer and Kunal Thakore, although roughly 140 Linklaters lawyers are involved in India transactions from time to time.
Linklaters India group head Sandeep Katwala said he hoped that internal promotions would replenish the top level in the core India group in the next round or two.
Katwala and Shobhan Thakore both stressed that Iyer and Kunal Thakore had severed all financial ties to Linklaters before joining TTA. ?There is no way that we can try and cross that line,? said Shobhan Thakore.
Iyer has been a Linklaters partner since 2007 and Kunal Thakore since 2008.
In the last four months former Linklaters Singapore managing associates Sonali Mahapatra and Rahul Gulati have also joined TTA as managing associates.
Full report at? http://www.thelawyer.com/1002511.article?nl=TL-LND
