Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas is set to absorb all BMR Legal partners in Gurgaon, Mumbai and Bangalore but one - founding partner Mukesh Butani.

Butani, a dual-qualified lawyer and accountant, had also founded BMR Legal’s best friend consultancy firm BMR Advisors.

The Shardul Amarchand hires are understood to pretty much include all senior lateral hires and talent acquired by BMR over the years, with between one and two partners each in Gurgaon, Mumbai and Bangalore.

That includes BMR Legal’s very first pureplay M&A partner, Amit Khansaheb, who had joined from Desai & Diwanji in Gurgaon in 2013.

Khansaheb had last year acted for Jabong on its Flipkart buy-out, on the CarDekho fundraising for Times Internet, the Minda Rs 150 cr buy Rinder.

Significantly, two partners in Bangalore, hired in 2014 from Themis Associates - Roshan Thomas and Siddharth Nair - will also be joining. Thomas works in general M&A, while Nair specialises in venture capital work, having last year, for instance, acted for Faasos on its $30m fundraising round.

That will give Shardul Amarchand a strong foothold in Bangalore, where, having opened one year ago, it still has a much smaller presence than competing large national law firms.

And in Mumbai, capital markets partner Kaushik Mukherjee, who had joined from J Sagar Associates (JSA) in late 2015 will also be joining Shardul Amarchand, giving the firm some much-needed capital markets presence in the city.

Butani did not respond to calls and emails for comment since yesterday.

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