2010 was a very eventful year for the firm. To cap a year of rapid expansion, including significant additions to the partnership, the partnership of the firm unanimously decided to change the name of the Firm from “RDA Legal” to “PXV Law Partners” (PXV).

PXV stands for Peak Fifteen – the name for Mount Everest when it was first surveyed. The name reflects the Firm’s commitment and aspiration to be at the very pinnacle of the legal profession and also captures the qualities of dedication, focus, stability and hard work that are required to scale the highest peak in the world.

The naming of Mount Everest has an interesting history surrounding it – a history which inspired the naming of the Firm. This is captured here. An extract is reproduced below:

“The first detailed surveys of the Himalayan peaks by the Survey of India began in 1847, on the initiative of the new Superintendent, Colonel Andrew Waugh.

In those years, such trigonometrical campaigns were complicated and laborious, because the surveyors could study the peaks only from great distances. Being denied access, in fact, obliged the British military to place their measuring instruments as far as 250 kilometers from the mountains. In autumn of 1847, Waugh was dealing with the measurement of Kangchenjunga, until then considered the highest mountain in the world.

Behind the Himalayan giant, however, the Survey Superintendant observed with interest another icy peak which apparently was even higher: in topographic circles it was soon baptized with the name of “Peak B”.

Waugh decided to increase observations from other trigonometrical stations, which were nearer the Himalayan chain. His officers succeeded in advancing to within 170 kilometers of the mountains, and invariably, though bearing in mind the possibility of errors, all the measurements of “Peak B” indicated a height which was decidedly above that of Kangchenjunga. Subsequently the results of the various surveys were re-examined in the offices at Dehra Dun.

The process of calculation lasted for a few years, because each datum obtained by topographers had to be stripped of the effects of the refraction of light and the excessive distance of the peak from survey stations. In the meantime, Michael Hennessy, one of Colonel Waugh´s assistants, invented a new naming system for the Himalayan Mountains, identifying the most important peaks with Roman numerals: Kangchenjunga was thus renamed Peak IX, and Peak B became Peak XV. Lastly, after much effort, came the final results which were made official only in 1856:

28.156 feet (8.581,9 meters), Peak IX
and 29.002 feet (8.839,8 meters), Peak XV.

Waugh declared that latter might prove to be the highest mountain in the world. The first  measurements of the Himalayan peaks, however, did not begin until 1847”

This history, in part, embodies the vision and inspiration of our Firm.