Former J Sagar Associates (JSA) Mumbai partner Shiraj Salelkar joined IC Legal’s equity yesterday as the sixth partner at the firm, which also rented its second office space in Mumbai.

Salelkar will head the firm’s litigation and dispute resolution practice in addition to handling private equity, corporate commercial and real estate work.

Salelkar, who had previously worked with IC Legal managing partner Bheru Chowdhary, said: “It was a good opportunity for me to branch out and build my existing expertise in my practice area [dispute resolution] with the help of IC Legal.”

He graduated from ILS Pune in 1994, and qualified as a solicitor in 1998 after an articled clerkship at Gagrat & Co. Before joining JSA in 2005 he worked at Mahimtura & Co and Crawford Bayley.

IC Legal managing partner Bheru Chowdhury commented: “It is a pleasure to have Shiraj with us at IC Legal. Shiraj and I had earlier worked together at Mahimtura & Co and we have a very good rapport with him. With Shiraj’s expertise, we have strengthened our dispute resolution, arbitration (both domestic and international) and private equity practise areas. We will continue to grow aggressively and strengthen our core practise areas.”

Since joining IC Legal, Salelkar has already recruited a 2010 NUJS Kolkata graduate as an associate for his four member team.

He said that at JSA partners Verghese Thomas and Farhad Sorabjee would take over the dispute resolution work that was being handled by him, while Thomas and partner Aashit Shah would handle the corporate commercial work.

JSA Mumbai partner Akshay Chudasama said: “We wish him success in his new venture.”

Second Mumbai office

IC Legal has also rented out a 3,000 square feet space in North Mumbai’s Andheri suburb to add to its 2,000 sq ft premises in Fort, near the courts. Ten lawyers, including Chowdhury and partners Indrajit Mishra and Tejesh Chitlangi, will relocate to Andheri once it is operational in December.

Chitlangi said that the firm intended to add around eight mid-level financial services lawyers within the next year, most of whom would work from Andheri, leaving the Fort office to the dispute resolution team because of its proximity to the Bombay high court.

Chitlangi and Mishra had joined the firm in May from Finsec Law Advisors, with the firm having grown to 18 lawyers since then with the addition of two financial services lawyers and Salelkar.