Advaya Legal has expanded its Mumbai footprint with Universal Legal Mumbai founding partner Sharanya G, only several months after starting a small Delhi office.

Sharanya had been at Bangalore-headquartered firm Universal Legal for over nine years and had set up the firm’s Mumbai presence in 2009, as reported by Legally India at the time.

Now she has joined with one of her associates from Universal, as Advaya’s third partner. She is based in the Bandra West office, where she will be focusing on corporate and commercial law work.

Sharanya said that after nine years in the same organisation she felt it was time to move on. She added that she wished Universal all the best, which had “felt like a second home” to her.

Universal managing partner Partha Mandal commented that he wished her the best for her “journey ahead” and said: “We are yet to zero in on a partner to head our Mumbai operations and in the interim the Mumbai office is being taken care by Gaurav Chatterjee and Sameena Chatrapathy, both partners from our Chennai office.”

Advaya now consists of three partners and 12 associates, having two offices in Mumbai and opening a small office in Gurgaon in May of this year, with two associates currently based there to service the existing transactional work of the firm.

“We have perhaps been one of the faster growing law firms with three offices in slightly over four years of existence,” commented Advaya’s 2010-founder Ramesh Vaidyanathan. “The Bandra office does transactional work and the Fort office focuses on litigation and real estate. A small Delhi NCR office was set up a couple of months back and a partner is scheduled to come on board to head the set up in Delhi NCR before the end of the year.”

In the short term, the firm would focus on expanding its corporate practice and look to double in size over two years, he added. “The firm expects to be a 25 lawyer firm over the next 24 months.  The firm will also be moving into its own premises located mid-town early next year.  Delhi NCR will also be an important part of the growth plans for the next 24 months.”

Eventually the Delhi practice would also include litigation, said Vaidyanathan.