The firm had been “active” in Bangalore since 2010 from a “small set-up” said managing partner Jidesh Kumar, mainly supported by Delhi and Chennai, but since July it became a standalone operation. The new office is headed by Kumar, Delhi intellectual property practice partner of two years, Deepesh Ahuja, and Delhi tax partner of more than four years Neeraj Vora.

Kumar said: “We have been active in Bangalore, [handling] private equity funds, large MNCs [multinational corporations] and real estate work. Now we’re looking at expanding. We’ve added tax, IPR, and information technology, some bit of projects and finance”.

The office on Lavelle Road overlooks the Bangalore Club and currently consists 14 lawyers, three of whom relocated from the Delhi and Chennai offices. Eleven other lawyers were fresh hires, said Kumar, with a mix coming from other firms or litigation.

Kumar said he planned hiring around 12 further associates in Bangalore by December, though not at the fresher level.

“We have a policy not to take freshers at all. Our first year associates have a minimum experience of two years. We take lawyers who have been trained in large law firms or international law firms, who have hit the ceiling and wish to try and explore working in niche areas,” he said.

He told Legally India that the firm’s clients included Fortune 100 companies, seven Fortune 20 companies in India and around 80 large Indian corporations, including group companies of the Tatas, Reliance, Max, and Dabur, as well as many foreign and domestic banks.

Ahmedabad looked promising to KSK in the banking and infrastructure space and was seeing a “lot of activity”, noted Kumar. “We are leaders in automobile ancillaries in India, and I am also on the board of several automobile companies.”

Bangalore is the fourth office of the firm, which was started in Delhi in 2006. KSK set up shop in Chennai in 2007 and opened in Mumbai in 2010, and now has 78 lawyers across its four offices; Delhi is the largest with 34 lawyers.

Rajesh Sivaswami heads the Delhi practice, Ravi Ramanathan heads Chennai, and Farah Sheikh will head Mumbai.

The firm presently currently consisted of 17 partners, with 12 holding equity, according to Kumar, who added that he hoped KSK to grow to 20 partners by the end of the year.