Hammurabi & Solomon has absorbed Bangalore lawyer Bharath Babu’s firm Seagull Law in Bangalore to expand its South India operations, with Babu joining the firm as a partner.

Seagull is a litigation firm of five lawyers, including founder Babu, operating from Bangalore’s Victoria Road.

Hammurabi managing partner Manoj Kumar said that Hammurabi already had a smaller office in Bangalore’s UB City and will relocate to Babu’s Victoria Road office post the merger to start with a team of five to six lawyers.

“The rationale is to strengthen our ability to serve our clients in the South India domain. We’re increasingly feeling the need of having a wider team,” commented Kumar.

He said that Hammurabi’s clients in South India were from the “information technology (IT), real estate and commerce” sectors and going forward the firm intended to focus on building the disputes, real estate and TMT practice in the region.

Babu is a litigation lawyer with over 15 years of experience in all branches of litigation- civil, criminal, commercial and constitutional matters, according to Hammurabi’s press release. “I felt it was the right time to expand and grow to the next level and hence decided to merge my practice with Hammurabi & Solomon. This integration with will definitely give us strength to go further by helping us to better our offering in other practice areas as well as expand our footprints in South of India. The synergy will ensure an increased bandwidth and scalability in South India,” he commented in the release.

Hammurabi now has six partners across offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Ranchi, Patna and Bangalore.

Its Mumbai head and partner Vidya Adsule demerged her practice from the firm in August.