Law firm Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co has hired four partners and 30 lawyers from smaller rival BMR Legal in one of the biggest instances of poaching in the legal space.
The people were part of BMR’s venture capital, private equity, mergers and acquisitions, corporate, capital market and regulatory practices. BMR Legal is now left with only the taxation practice, two persons privy to the development told VCCircle.
The four partners are Amit Khansaheb in New Delhi, Kaushik Mukherjee in Mumbai and Siddharth Nair and Roshan Thomas in Bengaluru. Khansaheb was head of BMR’s M&A and corporate practices while Mukherjee was part of the capital markets unit. Nair and Thomas were heading the firm’s VC and PE practices.
Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas is likely to announce the development on 28 April.
This will help the Shardul Shroff-led company to form a strong venture capital advisory practice in Bengaluru and add partners in its capital market practice in Mumbai. This will also enable the firm to beef up its M&A practice in New Delhi. It already has an M&A practice in Mumbai which was formed after hiring Shuva Mandal from AZB & Partners in September 2015.
This is the second major hiring exercise by Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas ever since Amarchand Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co was split between brothers Cyril and Shardul Shroff in 2015. Earlier, it had hired Akshay Chudasama, head of M&A at J Sagar Associates, along with around 20 lawyers. Later, the firm named Chudasama as managing partner in Mumbai.
With the addition of the lawyers from BMR Legal, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas will have close to 100 partners and around 470 lawyers.
When contacted, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas declined to comment.
A spokesperson for BMR Legal confirmed the development. “Our M&A law partners have decided to pursue their career interests outside of BMR Legal and are moving to a larger platform for the growth of their practice and team,†the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson also said that BMR will focus on the tax dispute resolution practice and strengthen capabilities in this area.
BMR Legal was founded by Mukesh Butani, who also co-founded audit and tax advisory firm BMR & Associates LLP along with Bobby Parikh. Both Butani and Parikh previously worked with auditing firm Arthur Andersen. In 2011, Parikh became chief mentor at BMR Advisors while Butani was named chairman.
