Raising The Bar

Suave but camera shy, he clocked in the long years that the legal profession entails.

- Sanjay Pinto

Without riding piggyback on his family surname, this son of former Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P.H.Pandian, known for propounding the theory of 'Sky High Powers' of his chair, seemed keen to steer clear of politics and focus only on his practice. In 1994, a 'law' story began. Under the tutelage of a doyen of the tax bar – Mr. K.R.Ramamani for close to ten years, P.H. Arvindh Pandian cut his teeth in Corporate Law and Taxation. Appearing in court barely a week after his enrollment as an Advocate, Arvindh was raring to go with his arguments in a merger case, but it got indefinitely adjourned. An early sign perhaps that great things come to those who wait.

Patience paid off. In about eight years, Arvindh branched out on his own to start his independent practice. Teaming up with his Law College batchmate Hari Shankar Mani,a veteran orator, the duo built an impressive clientele in the Corporate and Commercial Law arena, with Hari being “a great source of support for the last twenty years”, well before they got together.

As a second generation lawyer, Arvindh does not shy away from admitting that his legal luminary father Dr. P.H. Pandian, who was recently felicitated by the Madras Bar Association on completion of fifty years of practice was a “great influence” in his decision to choose law as a career. But the guidance of his first senior Mr.Ramamani, who was “generous and gracious enough to hand over my maiden stipend barely two months into my practice”, catapulted him into a scholarly realm.