L<\/span>&L Partners co-founder and former senior partner Mohit Saraf<\/b>, who had won a Rs 77 crore-value settlement<\/a> in a protracted arbitration and Delhi high court dispute and separation with fellow co-founder Rajiv Luthra, will announce the setting up of his own rival firm today, we understand according to multiple market sources.<\/p>\n Saraf\u2019s firm will be called Saraf & Partners, and will include at least two of L&L\u2019s few remaining corporate heavy-hitting long-time corporate partners, Bikash Jhawar<\/b> and Vaibhav Kakkar<\/b>, according to two authoritative sources. Jhawar, a 2003 NLSIU Bangalore graduate had been with the firm since 2007 after leaving ICICI Bank, while Kakkar, had worked at the firm since graduating from NLU Jodhpur in 2006.<\/p>\n According to our league tables, both of those names have been the highest-profile and busiest in L&L\u2019s remaining corporate practice, with Jhawar having acted<\/a> in 2019-20 on 7 deals worth $4bn, including a number of huge insolvencies; Kakkar having<\/a> led on nine deals worth $208m that year, including often with the firm\u2019s late senior corporate partner Sundeep Dudeja<\/a>.<\/p>\n Those two have been some of the most hotly tipped and, according to some of the transcripts of internal firm discussions submitted in court, also vocal supporters of Saraf\u2019s vision of opening up the equity of the firm in a different manner from Rajiv Luthra\u2019s.<\/p>\n However, we believe that other L&L partners will also be joining, we have not been able to authoritatively at this time confirm the other names that will be part of the Saraf & Partners starting line-up, but will update this story when we hear more.<\/p>\n We have reached out to Saraf, Jhawar and Kakkar for comment but neither have responded.<\/p>\n We have also reached out to Luthra for comment.<\/p>\n Update 13:33<\/strong>: The new firm has sent out a press release, stating that the firm would have 21 partners \u201cwho have resigned from L&L\u201d and a total of 84 lawyers (though it does not list the partners). The (nearly) full press release included below.<\/p>\n Update 12:41<\/strong>: As pointed out in the comments, Saraf and Partners also has a logo, Twitter account<\/a> and registered domain (linked to from Twitter but only with a holding page now) now.<\/p>\n B<\/span>ut for the name, the fact of Saraf & Partners starting will surprise very few people in the market, which has witnessed the break-up of the firm since we had first begun reporting bitter and very open internal fights in late 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since then, at least seven partners – including many of whom were homegrown at the firm – had quit the firm<\/a>, in addition to mass departures such as nearly the entire top-rated capital markets team previously to IndusLaw.<\/p>\n That said, despite the heavy attrition and losses of talent that he might have hoped to entice into his new endeavour, he does start out with a warchest of Rs 52 crores in cash from Rajiv Luthra after the litigation, and a bank guarantee of Rs 25 cr from the latter pending the final outcome of the arbitration.<\/p>\n D<\/span>uring the Delhi high court dispute, Rajiv Luthra has attempted to plug some gaps with hires – somewhat complicated by the fact that the Delhi high court had imposed a moratorium on any hires, which had therefore purportedly been made unilaterally by Rajiv Luthra on his personal book rather than the firm\u2019s.<\/p>\n These include the re-joining of AZB & Partners Mumbai-based banking partner Piyush Mishra into L&L\u2019s depleted Mumbai office and insolvency team, according to Bar & Bench (the NLSIU 2002 graduate had left L&L in 2007 and 2015 after three and near-six-year stints respectively, bracketed and interposed by roles at erstwhile Amarchand Mangaldas, Allen & Overy and Cyril Amarchand after moving to AZB in 2018). Bar & Bench also reported that L&L was looking to expand its office<\/a> space to entire 20th floor of an Indiabulls building, though we have not been able to confirm precise details.<\/p>\n Another Luthra alum, Abhishek Mathur, would also be rejoining L&L in Delhi, according to B&B<\/a>. Mathur had been running ABM Law Associates his own firm since leaving Luthra & Luthra, as it was then called, in 2008 after having begun his career at Luthra\u2019s in 2003 after graduating from NLSIU.<\/p>\n We also understand that in the latter stages of the dispute, at least since May 2021, Rajiv Luthra had hired the 2016 to April 2021 Trilegal chief-operating officer, Sabiana Anandaraj<\/b>, as part of his personal team to help him in managing the firm.<\/p>\n The hire makes sense, as of course, managing the firm on an operational level had previously effectively been Saraf\u2019s role, despite Saraf\u2019s prior official job title having been senior partner and Luthra\u2019s that of managing partner, which Luthra retains at the continuing L&L firm.<\/p>\n We have not been able to confirm Anandaraj\u2019s official title at L&L.<\/p>\n W<\/span>hat exactly the future structure of L&L will be, is not clear.<\/p>\n For one, negotiations to extricate Saraf from the separate litigation and other partnership he has a stake in, are presumably still ongoing and were not included in the Delhi high-court sanctioned settlement<\/a>.<\/p>\n What is known, is that during the midst of the dispute, Luthra had infamously ousted Saraf and opened up a side pot of equity, appointing two partners<\/a> – Delhi-based Harish Kumar and Mumbai-based Aniket Sengupta – into this new equity pot.<\/p>\n We understand that the exact percentage of his equity that Luthra had opened up at the time was equivalent to 0.25% of Luthra\u2019s 66.6% profit share at the corporate partnership firm (Luthra had not responded for comment to this figure back in January 2021).<\/p>\n![\"Saraf](\"http:\/\/www.legallyindia.com\/images\/uploads\/20210719-002354.jpg\")
![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.legallyindia.com\/images\/uploads\/20210719-091253.jpg\")
Long time coming<\/h3>\n
Luthra down in numbers but not out<\/h3>\n
The Luthra & Luthra of the future<\/h3>\n