office openings
Kolkata start-up Aquilaw has partnered with Supreme Court advocate on record (AOR) Vikas Mehta and advocate Vikram Mehta, for a presence in Delhi.
Hammurabi & Solomon opened in Patna on 24 August, adding its fourth national office in addition to Delhi, Mumbai and Ranchi.
Brus Chambers, a Mumbai-based law firm has opened a subsidiary firm headquartered in New York.
Mumbai and Delhi-based firm SNG & Partners, which opened an office in Singapore one year ago and specialises in advising financial services sector clients, has opened a second overseas office in Qatar.
Bangalore-headquartered firm Universal Legal, which also has offices in Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Chandigarh, has opened up in Ahmedabad under partner in charge Aayush Modi.
Alpha Partners, the corporate and intellectual property boutique started up in 2012 by former SRGR Law Offices lawyer Akshat Pande with Videocon group in-houser Ankit Prakash, opened its second national office and its first outside the Delhi area, in Bangalore.
Orbit Law Services, which was started up last year by Clasis Law project finance breakaway partners Ishtiaq Ali and Damodara Rao, with PV Rao, opened its fourth national office in Chennai, after Delhi, Mumbai and Vijaywada.
Orbit associate partner Haridas Sriramulu and one associate from the firm were relocated to the Chennai office which is headed by PV Rao from Mumbai.
The firm, which was started up in September 2014, has a team of 35 lawyers including two senior partners, four partners, seven associate partners, two senior consultants, four senior associates and 16 associates, according to the press release.
Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan added a third office in the Delhi region, opening up in Gurgaon.
Shardul Shroff will start in Bangalore in the next month with between five or six partners aiming for a headcount of 30 to 35 fee-earners, while in Mumbai organic expansion through lateral hires would continue to grow to up to 100 lawyers by year-end.
Cyril Shroff, who will launch his take on Amarchand Mangaldas today with new partnership Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, has confirmed the lateral hires made so far and partner moves to Delhi, while revealing that he planned to spend around half his time in Delhi in the first 12 months of the office.
Phoenix Legal has opened its first office after Delhi and Mumbai, launching in Chennai today with a team of four lawyers.
Cyril Shroff, Mumbai-based managing partner of Amarchand which is set to split in two, has finalised a lease in Delhi’s Saket area.
J Sagar Associates (JSA) has opened its seventh office in Ahmedabad on 1 January after hiring Bijal Chhatrapati from Singhi & Co as an equity partner to head up the office.
Senior partner Berjis Desai said in a press release: “For a few years, we had actively considered establishing our offices at Chennai and Ahmedabad these being cities where significant national law firms have not been present. Chennai office commenced operations in April 2014 and we are truly excited to open in Ahmedabad, in a State which has become a beacon for the economic development of the country.”
Chhatrapati focuses on dispute resolution, M&A and corporate commercial work and is a qualified Bombay solicitor, and commented in the release: “I am proud to be a part of a national law firm which is ahead of the fundamental changes that occur in a market. I have always admired JSA’s commitment to building a sharing, merit-based, empowering, and nurturing institution focussed on client servicing.”
JSA has six other offices in Bangalore, Chennai, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi, with over 340 lawyers and 80 Partners, according to the release.
The only other of the country’s six largest firms - the Big Six - with an office in Ahmedabad is Amarchand Mangaldas.
Kochhar & Co opened up in Dubai on 10 November, after the Dubai Legal Affairs Department (LAD) of the Ruler’s Office granted the firm its licence to practice in the UAE six months ago.
DSK Legal has doubled its office space in Pune within six months of opening up in the city, on the back of new large local corporate client accounts.
Wadia Ghandy closed its Singapore office after three years of operations on the ground of the island nation, due to a lack of commercial viability.
In an interview to UK legal magazine Legal Week, headlined as “Amarchand sizes up options for first international base as India's unlevel playing field continues to frustrate”, Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi managing partner Shardul Shroff said that the firm was thinking about opening an office abroad.
He told Legal Week:
“Singapore [is the strongest contender] because its links with India are quite strong… Singapore enables clients to service the whole of the ASEAN market… But it could be Hong Kong, London, Dubai or New York – it depends on what 2016 looks like. It also depends where clients need us…
“It would have to be an office of significance, not just a representative office where you receive the mail… We want to do it properly. We also don't want to disturb our international relationships with global law firms – we want to preserve these. But equally we want to provide Indian expertise that is relevant to the international market. We want to be present in markets where the local Indian situation becomes relevant; approaching the clients on their doorstep rather than expecting them to come to India…
“There are firms that have gone to China or Singapore but their offices are small and not significant enough to make a statement on behalf of Indian lawyers.”
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Advaya Legal has expanded its Mumbai footprint with Universal Legal Mumbai founding partner Sharanya G, only several months after starting a small Delhi office.
Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan (LKS) opened its first international office on Friday, with an Indian law firm Geneva debut.