Platinum Partners has grown its lawyer ranks by a quarter in the last three months, taking on three law school graduates and a lateral associate from White & Case in London.

J Sagar Associates (JSA) has doubled its size in Bangalore by merging with M&C Partners, which was started up by two partners and their team from AZB & Partners one year ago.

Desai & Diwanji has poached a team of four lawyers from Crawford Bayley, taking on one senior associate as a partner.

Khaitan & Co has made up a former PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) chartered accountant-cum-lawyer to partner.

Sanjay Sanghvi (pictured) only qualified as a lawyer after joining Khaitan in January 2008 from PwC. He is the third new member to the law firm’s partnership in as many months.

He said that working in a law firm was very satisfying: “In accountancy firms you typically do compliance work and you don’t go deeper into the law and interpretation.

Trilegal spin-off Phoenix Legal has added two associates in Delhi, vowing to significantly expand its practice there and in Mumbai with lateral hires.

The firm is hoping to hire a lateral partner for its Mumbai office and to double it in size to 10 lawyers by the end of the year.

Phoenix founding partner Abhishek Saxena said: “We are looking around for a couple of candidates. Although we’d be keen to get a partner, if it does not materialise we may want to get a very senior associate.”

FoxMandal Little has hired a partner to head its New Delhi intellectual property (IP) practice of three lawyers.

Vinay Dwarkadas joined from Khaitan & Co’s Mumbai office where he was a senior associate.

Dwarkadas (pictured) said that he hoped to greatly expand the existing IP practice at FoxMandal: “I have to be its backbone and want to take it forward for years to come. I plan to be here for a long time.”

Luthra & Luthra is ramping up its Mumbai capital markets practice after hiring alumnus and new group head Manan Lahoty from US firm Shearman & Sterling in London.

Lahoty (pictured) will lead the Mumbai capital markets team of five associates, reporting to capital markets partner Madhurima Mukherjee in Delhi and her team of 10 lawyers.

Until now, Mukherjee had managed the Luthra & Luthra Mumbai team from Delhi but she admitted that this was difficult to do from a distance. “When Manan wanted to come back the logical choice was to send him to Bombay,” she said.

Delhi-headquartered law firm King Stubb & Kasiva is set to open a new office in Mumbai within months and has added a new equity partner to its head office ranks.

The firm is currently finalising the negotiations with up to two partners from Mumbai firms to spearhead its new office.

Managing partner Jidesh Kumar (pictured) said: “The Mumbai office would be banking, finance and infrastructure focused. We are looking at having an infrastructure partner from one of the top five law firms there.”

Khaitan & Co has continued its aggressive lateral hiring strategy, taking partner Prabjot Singh Bhullar from AZB & Partners.

Bhullar (pictured) was based in AZB’s Mumbai office but will relocate to Delhi, where he will significantly bolster Khaitan’s infrastructure and projects capacity.

Khaitan partner Rabindra Jhunjhunwala said that the firm was keen to expand in infrastructure and tax, in order to improve cross selling opportunities to the firm’s domestic clients.

Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co has poached two Mumbai partners from competitors as it hopes to widen its partnership.

The firm has hired Luthra & Luthra corporate partner Ashish Jejurkar and Mulla & Mulla & Blunt & Caroe infrastructure partner Tushar Mavani.

Amarchand managing partner Cyril Shroff (pictured) told UK legal magazine The Lawyer: “These two people have the right temperament and drive to be part of our vision.

Khaitan & Co has hired senior associate Bharat Anand from UK magic circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.