JSA walks the talk

"As far as Indian law firms go, no one is closer to this experiment or model than us and, therefore, the challenge is obviously the greatest,” so explains the managing partner of J. Sagar Associates (JSA) Berjis Desai in an interview published in the Mint financial daily of June 2, 2015.
Desai was commenting on the experiment that he and the firm’s founder, Jyoti Sagar, embarked on 13 years ago to create India’s fourth largest law firm. While JSA has 325 lawyers and 33 equity partners, the largest chunk of equity is not held by family members, founders or promoters, according to Mint. And partners retire at the age of 60.
"I am proud to say (when we) started in 2003, the combined equity percentage of Jyoti and me was 66%. When Jyoti retired, (our) combined equity was 13%. And today, my equity is only six percent. So, at least (with) this experiment, whatever it is, we have not followed the route of bankrolling ourselves to the grave but to play with this experiment.
"Some of our junior partners, depending on their assessment and evaluation, have earned and are earning more money than me… I don’t think at any other firm this would be expected.”

Berjis Desai: fostering merit

Getting partnership remuneration right is one of the most important things for any law firm, points out Desai. At JSA "The compensation committee resets the equity percentages, depending upon the data for the last three years. So, it’s a backward-looking system. How you performed between April 1, 2014 and March 31, 2017 will determine your new equity percentages starting from (April 1) 2018. That’ll be fixed for three years.”
It was only very late in his life that Desai got together with Sagar, eponymous founder of the firm. In 2002, a common friend introduced them and it was a meeting of minds, remembers Desai. "We somehow realized instantly that (we had) more or less the (same) ideas and vision of what we wanted to do and experiment with — this really truly democratic structure where people retire and no relatives are allowed in the firm, and (there is) true merit, etc. It may have sounded utopian, but the fact is that the firm will complete 25 years next year,” having been founded in 1991.
Sagar retired from the firm on April 1, 2013 and Desai will retire on April 1, 2017, noted Mint. "All I’m going to do in 2017 — for those two or three years critically — (will be to function) as a friend or philosopher guide, for no financial or monetary gain, but just because they are my friends and this is my institution, so to say. I will obviously lend a helping hand if there’s any crisis or any major issue, but not in day-to-day management.
"If you successfully meet that challenge, I’m pretty sure that this will be a great institution that will survive for several years.”
Desai says he believes that he and Sagar laid down a solid foundation on that front. "There could have been many inefficiencies, many mistakes, many blunders, but nobody can accuse us of being hypocrites or not having walked the talk. We have walked the talk.”
Desai writes the "Bawa Musing” column in every issue of Parsiana.