Job moves

Vaish Associates has started a competition law practice with the hire of former Jindal Steel in-houser and Competition Commission of India (CCI) registrar M M Sharma.

Luthra & Luthra has made 10 pre-placement offers (PPOs) to final year law students at three national law schools. The firm has also hired six lateral associates, with the fresh batch of seven new law school graduates now starting.

Luthra & Luthra has hired two more India-returnees, making up four international hires in only three months. Ashwin Sapra joins as a group head from an in-house position at a US pharmaceutical company and Piyush Mishra has rejoined the firm as a group head from Allen & Overy (A&O).

Trilegal has hired a capital markets partner from its best friend Allen & Overy (A&O), to join the firm's Mumbai office and strengthen the referral relationship.

AZB & Partners is relocating one of its Mumbai partners to Bangalore to ease the office's integration process after the merger with Anup Shah's local practice last month.

Amarchand Mangaldas has hired a Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer lawyer as a principal associate designate in its Delhi office.

Kochhar & Co has hired an Amarchand Mangaldas designated senior associate for its corporate team in Mumbai, vowing "aggressive" expansion in the city.

One of Juris Corp's senior associates has rejoined the firm after a three year stint in-house at ICICI Bank and in the last three months the firm has also taken on six lawyers from law school and two junior lawyers returning after completing LLMs abroad.

Platinum Partners has grown its lawyer ranks by a quarter in the last three months, taking on three law school graduates and a lateral associate from White & Case in London.

J Sagar Associates (JSA) has doubled its size in Bangalore by merging with M&C Partners, which was started up by two partners and their team from AZB & Partners one year ago.

Desai & Diwanji has poached a team of four lawyers from Crawford Bayley, taking on one senior associate as a partner.

Khaitan & Co has made up a former PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) chartered accountant-cum-lawyer to partner.

Sanjay Sanghvi (pictured) only qualified as a lawyer after joining Khaitan in January 2008 from PwC. He is the third new member to the law firm's partnership in as many months.

He said that working in a law firm was very satisfying: "In accountancy firms you typically do compliance work and you don't go deeper into the law and interpretation.

Trilegal spin-off Phoenix Legal has added two associates in Delhi, vowing to significantly expand its practice there and in Mumbai with lateral hires.

The firm is hoping to hire a lateral partner for its Mumbai office and to double it in size to 10 lawyers by the end of the year.

FoxMandal Little has hired a partner to head its New Delhi intellectual property (IP) practice of three lawyers.

Vinay Dwarkadas joined from Khaitan & Co's Mumbai office where he was a senior associate.

Dwarkadas (pictured) said that he hoped to greatly expand the existing IP practice at FoxMandal: "I have to be its backbone and want to take it forward for years to come. I plan to be here for a long time."

Luthra & Luthra is ramping up its Mumbai capital markets practice after hiring alumnus and new group head Manan Lahoty from US firm Shearman & Sterling in London.

Lahoty (pictured) will lead the Mumbai capital markets team of five associates, reporting to capital markets partner Madhurima Mukherjee in Delhi and her team of 10 lawyers.

Until now, Mukherjee had managed the Luthra & Luthra Mumbai team from Delhi but she admitted that this was difficult to do from a distance. "When Manan wanted to come back the logical choice was to send him to Bombay," she said.