Law firms

Desai & Diwanji (D&D) Delhi head and corporate partner Sumes Dewan started up last week, having left the firm two months ago. His full service start-up law firm Lex Favios has offices in Bombay and Delhi, and has 15 lawyers, including him, with at least 10 years of experience working in various law firms.

The former legal general manager of Advanta India, Ameya Salatry, has started a real estate, contracts, corporate, transactional, banking, business finance, licensing and intellectual property law firm in Panjim, Goa, according to Bar & Bench.

The firm, called Legal Minds LLP, was started in April 2014, according to the 2001-ILS Pune graduate’s Linked-in profile. It was also “one of the first legal firms of its kind in Goa”, Salatry told Bar & Bench, with lawyers and “corporate affairs professionals” on an “affiliation basis” in Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

J Sagar Associates (JSA) tax chair Ashok Dhingra, partner Smita Singh, and partner-equivalent chartered accountant (CA) Sonia Gupta, have set up boutique tax advisory firm Ashok Dhingra Associates (ADA).

Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan (LKS) opened its first international office on Friday, with an Indian law firm Geneva debut.

Amarchand Mangaldas has opened a new office in Gurgaon with four Delhi partners

Clasis Law co-founding partner Sakate Khaitan and three Clasis senior associates have started Khaitan Legal Associates, a law firm with offices in Mumbai and London.

The Vedanta Group’s former general counsel Ajit Yadav has started up the law firm Lexaya Partners four months ago, reported Bar & Bench.

Lexaya Partners is a corporate and business law advisory firm according to his Linked-in profile, focusing on corporate law, power, infrastructure, ports, natural resources, indirect tax, IP and litigation.

Yadav was Vedanta GC between 2011 and March 2014, a Fox Mandal Little partner from 2010, preceded by 28 years in-house, as company secretary or executive director at Patni Computer Systems, PepsiCo India, Ranbaxy Laboratories and Hindustan Unilever, also having set up legal process outsourcing (LPO) business Lexaya Solutions in the last four years.

He told Bar & Bench that there was an acute shortage of business lawyers and he was looking to fill that gap, having started work with some corporates already and having five of counsel to handle litigation.

Indian Law Partners (ILP) promoted its first non-founding partner into the partnership in Delhi with counsel Gaurav Wahie, effective from 1 April..

DSK Legal’s only partner in Bangalore, Ajesh Kumar Shankar, demerged his practice from DSK into AKS Law Associates in April, going independent again.