Vivek Bajaj has been promoted to partner level after almost five years with the firm, having started his career in 2000 with Bangalore firm Holla & Holla.

AZB's partnership promotions normally take place during April but his promotion was a planned exception, said AZB Bangalore managing partner Anup Shah.

Shah (pictured) explained: "He's been made a partner now because he's been with the firm for five years and has acquired expertise in his area."

AZB merged with Anup Shah's practice in late July, doubling the size of the office to almost 40 lawyers.

The integration of the two offices was now "virtually" complete, said Shah, having moved into AZB's Lavelle Road office and worked on merging IT and other systems.

The merger also brought AZB the small Chennai and Hyderabad outpost of Shah's firm.

The Chennai office last month moved into a new space on Khader Navaz Khan Road, which will be large enough for up to 18 associates – six times its present size of three associates.

Shah said: "We've taken quite a large space – in the next two to three months we will scale up to seven [associates], depending on how the market goes."

He added that he also wanted to grow the Hyderabad office, which also consists of only three lawyers, to a similar size in the same time frame.

No partners are based in either of the locations. Shah noted that he was happy with Bangalore's current footprint.