Wadia Ghandy Mumbai partner Ahuja commented: “These are challenging times, as there are too many uncertainties in the market. One cannot predict what tomorrow will be like.”

“However this market requires bold moves and we at Wadia Ghandy believe that the future is strong for bravehearts. Here's wishing our four new bravehearts the very best,” he added.

Senior associate Farnawaz Saklatwala in corporate and Suraj Juneja in real estate have both been promoted as partners.

Saklatwala had been with the firm since 2005 after qualifying as a Bombay Incorporate Law Society (BILS) solicitor at Mulla & Mulla and graduating from GLC Mumbai in 2001.

She said: “I think the firm it just allows you to grow and gives you a lot of support in whichever direction you want to go in. In that sense there is a lot of flexibility.”

Wadia Ghandy has also hired Radhika Bhatt from Freshfields in London, who Ahuja said was “super specialist on fund formation”.

Bhatt was at Wadia Ghandy in 2005 for six months and then joined Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London from 2006. She studied at the University of Cambridge.

Denzil Arambhan, who previously worked at HDFC Real Estate Fund where he assisted on its real estate investments, will also join as a partner and is a “whiz in real estate FDI” (foreign direct investment), according to Ahuja.

A total of nine Mumbai associates were also promoted to senior associate level: Amrita Goel, Gautam Ganjawala, Gaurav Gopal, Jasmine Sheth, Ketaki Suklikar, Rati Patni, Shreya Pandeya, Shoma Maitra and Vedangi Tulzapurkar. Other offices have not yet announced their internal promotions, if any.

Solicitors’ history

In 2010 Wadia Ghandy promoted three to partner (Xerxes Antia, Shabnum Kajiji and Fariyal Tahseen), growing to 18 partners and around 90 associates.

In March 2011 the firm promoted four more – Vijay Sureka in corporate and M&A; Amit Manubarwala in competition, corporate, private equity and intellectual property; and Rahul Dwarkadas in litigation.

Now the firm’s partnership is 55 per cent larger, consisting of 28, of whom 20 are based in Mumbai. The rest are based in Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Pune, and the Singapore office that was started in late 2011.

Wadia Ghandy has a total of around 160 lawyers, said Ahuja, which is a two-year headcount increase of over 77 per now cent.

He added that the firm would be 175-lawyers large in two months.

In three years Khaitan & Co grew its partnership headcount by around 70 per cent primarily with heavy lateral hiring, Legally India reported yesterday, while its fee-earner base ballooned from 178 to around 300, or 68 per cent over the same time period.

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