Exclusive: Clasis Law has hired former Parekh & Co lawyer Sumeet Lall as a partner to head up its litigation and disputes team.

J Sagar Associates (JSA) has hired Herbert Smith senior associate Promod Nair as a salaried partner in Bangalore, specialising in international arbitration.

Exclusive: Amarchand Mangaldas has promoted five new partners into the lockstep equity pool and created 11 practice heads, as part of the 2017 plan for the firm to grow to 1000-lawyers and 100 partners following the proposals from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) review.

Amarchand Mangaldas has promoted eight principal associates to partnership in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, hired White & Case associate Raghubir Menon as a partner and promoted Irish competition lawyer Paku Khan as a partner-equivalent director.

Exclusive: Naik Naik & Co and securities start-up boutique Prism Partners Advocates have entered into an exclusive alliance under the Naik brand name.

Corporate recruiter ICICI Bank has increased its basic pay package for new recruiters by almost one and a half lakh rupees taking the basic annual package to 10.5 lakh, as Bharucha & Partners, Juris Corp and Majmudar & Co hiked their fresher pay. Tatva Legal kicked off its first law school recruitment season with packages of Rs 8 lakh.

Yesterday’s closed-door afternoon meeting between UK justice secretary Kenneth Clarke, Indian law minister Salman Kursheed and Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Ashok Parija stopped short of reaching an agreement on the entry of foreign law firms but the countries would trial cooperation on the legal education front for the next six months.

Former India Law Services (ILS) associate and Symbiosis Law School graduate Aakash Phadnis project finance and intellectual property (IP) start-up in Pune has recently started a tie-up in Delhi and hopes to open in Mumbai soon.

Delhi-headquartered law firm Khaitan Jayakar Sud and Vohra (KJSV) has rebranded itself to KS Partners as it relaunched its Mumbai office to focus on niche practice areas, while its former Mumbai partner Mohan Jayakar left to start his own firm.

**Exclusive: Former Remfry & Sagar patents head and Lakshmi Kumaran & Sridharan (LKS) partner Dr Sanjay Kumar has left to start his own intellectual property (IP) law firm Perfexio Legal fulfilling entrepreneurial ambitions.

Exclusive: Project finance specialist India Law Services (ILS) has opened office its fourth office in Bangalore with former State Bank of India (SBI) lawyer as its head in a bid to capitalise on market opportunities in southern India.

Kenneth Clarke, the UK’s Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor who will visit India in the coming weeks, said at a speech today that it was in the interests of Indian business to open up the legal sector to foreign law firms or suffer because of “restricted domestic legal provision”.

Wakhariya & Wakhariya has hired former UBS India legal head Neeta Sanghavi as partner to head the financial institutions, investment banking and private equity practices.

Exclusive: Nishith Desai Associates (NDA) has hired former Goldman Sachs India legal head Pratibha Jain to start up in Delhi, as the firm opened its second Mumbai office in the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) last week and invested Rs 1 crore ($219,000) in advanced IT infrastructure.

Exclusive: Vishnu Jerome, who resigned from AZB & Partners in June, has started up the law firm Alliance Legal with fellow NLSIU Bangalore graduates Priyanka Roy and Ravi Kumar from J Sagar Associates (JSA) and Talwar Thakore Associates (TTA) respectively.

Exclusive: Chennai Law Associates, which was set up 18 months ago by former Surana & Surana litigator ML Joseph and broken even last month, has moved into larger office and opened an arbitration centre as an additional revenue source.

Exclusive: Trilegal has internally promoted the first two salaried partners into its equity partner lockstep since the Phoenix Legal breakaway, with Mumbai corporate partners Nishant Parikh and Amit Tambe starting on the first rung of the firm’s 13 year lockstep.

Exclusive: Phoenix Legal has opened a second Mumbai office in Nariman Point relocating its recently hired litigation partner and bulked up with Hariani & Co real estate and corporate partner Siddharth Hariani to expand to three partners in Mumbai.

Luthra & Luthra has promoted three Delhi lawyers to partnership and will buy German-made cars for five partners, as a raft of associates have been promoted to senior and managing associate levels.

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**Trilegal has promoted counsel Saurabh Bhasin as non-equity partner in the energy and infrastructure group in Delhi from 1 August.