When Neel Sachdev left a top British law firm to work in the London office of a US rival 20 years ago, he was warned by an older colleague that he was doing a “deal with the devil”.
If so, then Sachdev has arguably had the last laugh. He is now one of the UK’s most high-profile and best-paid private equity lawyers. Last year he moved from Kirkland & Ellis, his first American employer, to become co-head of the London office at his second, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Annual partner remuneration at the New York-headquartered firm can run into tens of millions of dollars.
“It was historically seen as a high-risk move to go to a US firm in London,” says Sachdev, sitting in the firm’s new offices in Soho that were once home to Twitter.