RDA Legal, a 2-year-old law firm set up by National University of Juridical Sciences alumni has entered into a non-exclusive and non-financial relationship with French law firm DS Avocats.

Speaking to Bar & Bench, Rohit Das (pictured), Managing Partner of RDA Legal said, “We are looking at a long-term relationship. DS Avocats has worked with several Indian firms including us. We have also worked with their Singapore and Germany offices. They found us young, adaptive and a dynamic team and that’s why they choose us over the more established ones”.

When quizzed about how RDA Legal did not choose to partner with US or UK law firms like most other Indian law firms, he said “In the long run, it will benefit to have a relationship with a civil law country and do more focused cross border and transnational deals in Europe with companies that are looking to work in India”. He further added, “This best friends relationship will help us understand global best practices, knowledge sharing and learning practices like competition law, in which European law firms have a strong practice and reputation”.

RDA Legal and DS Avocats are planning to send lawyers on secondment to each others' firm. Das is quick to point out that such secondments will be within the purview of the Advocates Act without violating any provision of the Act.

Although a start up firm, RDA Legal has set up offices in Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore and Ranchi, Das says, "Partners took up the responsibility of moving out of the Kolkata office and setting up offices in other cities". Mohit Abraham, who also worked at Amarchand Mangaldas and later completed his LLM at Harvard Law School is a Partner at their Delhi office.

RDA Legal had also set up an LPO, which they shut down after a year to focus on the law firm, as the practice grew and the Partners had to focus on a particular practice area. The firm is also looking to expand and hire associates and expand their presence to Mumbai. The firm plans to set up the Mumbai office in the next 6 to 7 months.

With more and more lawyers looking to branch out on their own, it’s good to see streaks of entrepreneurial energy peaking amongst young lawyers. There are enough global examples of Associates branching out of their law firm and going on to become as big and in some cases bigger than the law firms from which they have branched out.

De Facto points out few such examples in his column titled, 2010: The Year of the Entrepreneurial Lawyer?