Exclusive: Economic Laws Practice (ELP) has hired former KPMG senior manager Ajit Tolani as its first associate partner in Pune, while promoting Aqeel Sheerazi and Ritesh Kanodia to associate partnership in Mumbai.

The elevation of Sheerazi and Kanodia took effect on 1 April and Tolani joined ELP in March to head the transfer pricing practice in Pune – an office of around five lawyers. This takes ELP’s total partnership tally to 20, including six equity partners and one managing partner, across Mumbai, Delhi and Pune.

ELP’s Mumbai-based partner Sujjain Talwarsaid: “It’s a sign of how quickly people can grow in the firm and we are now 16 partners [in Mumbai] from four when we started in 2001. It is not massive but surely a good pace of growth. 99 per cent of our promotions happen once a year.”

Tolani said he had been with KPMG for 10 years, for three of which he was in New York, specialising in transfer pricing as a chartered accountant and a lawyer. “I’ve joined to set up the whole transfer pricing practice for ELP, the plan is to make it big and roll it at the national level and do every possible bit in the transfer prcing world. We have had a very small practice and the plan is to bring my entire experience to blend domestic and international practice and apply to help clients here, mostly on the litigation side.”

Kanodia, who is a dual-qualified professional with a charter accountants’ degree has spent five years in the firm prior to which he was working with consultancy firm Deloitte. More than a year ago Kanodia completed his LLB from Mumbai’s Gopaldas Advani Law College.

“My primary focus would be on indirect taxes and focus would be to do more marketing, more development and get more clients for the firm,” he told Legally India. “When I look at this practice, in terms of clientele we have and the kind of clientele we want to get, I think there’s a huge bridge that I would like to cross.”

“Secondly, providing the same quality of service which we have been providing in the past to all our clients in the firm,” he added. “The short span of time within which I have been made a partner only emphasises the fact how somebody can develop a career in such short time.”

The second newly appointed associate partner Sheerazi responsible for litigation has been with ELP for over four years. He was unavailable for a comment.