Verma relocated from Delhi to Bangalore to join Khaitan & Co as a partner this month from PAV Law Offices, focusing on general transactional corporate work and corporate commercial advice.

Verma (pictured) said: “The plan is to try and bolster the corporate commercial practice in Bangalore and the south of India and we will be working towards that.”

He explained that although only joining formally this month he had been working with Khaitan & Co on transactions for a few months. “There is strong business logic in terms of the potential which is there in Bangalore and obviously you need a team and resources for tapping it. The discussions we both had and both sides were equally convinced that this was the market which had to be tapped.”

Khaitan’s Bangalore office was now three partners in size said Mumbai partner Rabindra Jhunjhunwala and they were looking to grow.

Verma noted that the firm was doing well in Bangalore but the key to fulfilling the potential would be to institutionalise the practice, rather than relying on individual partners as is common in the legal profession.

In 2008 he had co-founded PAV Law Offices in Delhi after holding partnership in JSA for two years from 2006 to 2008, having rejoined that firm after a short stint as general manager legal of the Bharti Airtel group.

He had started his law career as an individual practitioner in 1995 and continued for over four years before first joining JSA in 2000. “What I have done is merged my practice with Khaitan & Co’s. There is one more [founding] partner in PAV, who will continue her practice there, she will continue with the brand name of PAV."

Kiron Prabhakar, the other founding partner of PAV, confirmed Verma’s departure and said she wished him all the best.