Amarchand spreads: Chennai with Kochhar head; Gujarat office in June; Pune by 2013

Exclusive

Monday, 6 February 2012 By Legally India Law firms

Exclusive: Amarchand Mangaldas will launch in Chennai by March with Kochhar & Co Chennai head Dorothy Thomas, followed by re-opening in Ahmedabad with a Pune office pegged for the latter end of this year.

Thomas, who resigned as resident partner from Kochhar around one week ago, is understood to have signed with Amarchand to spearhead Chennai. The firm signed up for office space in December, which is expected to be ready in March, according to a firm source.

Around June of this year the firm will return to Ahmedabad, where around five years ago it had closed its office. According to several sources, one Delhi partner is strongly tipped to relocate with a senior lateral hire. Office space in Ahmedabad has already been secured.

A smaller Pune office is in the offing between October 2012 and March 2013, although details are understood to not have been finalised yet.

Mumbai management will be directly responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations in Chennai and Pune, while the new Ahmedabad outpost will be managed from Delhi.

Amarchand managing partners Cyril Shroff in Mumbai and Shardul Shroff in Delhi declined to confirm details, but between them said they would open new offices in the three cities.

This would give the firm eight offices in India, including Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

Thomas declined to comment when contacted. Kochhar & Co partner Rohit Kochhar did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Photo by Maps.bpl.org

Comments

OMG 6 Feb 2012, 23:37

+1 -0

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

@OMG 7 Feb 2012, 16:41

+2 -1

I Know who you are

OMG 7 Feb 2012, 17:49

Who do you think I am?

See I Told Ya... 7 Feb 2012, 18:08

+5 -1

See I Told Ya, when i return from a foreign LLM I will have three cities to choose from. You people were simply forced Mumbai and Delhi.

Ooo la la ooo la la

Desi Lawyer 8 Feb 2012, 09:41

and now you will be remote controlled from mumbai/ delhi..

better check on your hotel and taxi ccontacts, soon you may be required to organise loads of these for your 'visiting' partners from HQ Command..

Scooter 8 Feb 2012, 08:18

+2 -0

@See I Told ya...

Can you please post a link of the news piece we all missed.. has the headline "Amarchand dying to hire "See I Told ya...""

Fox & Mandal strategy 8 Feb 2012, 10:55

Very interesting to note that AM has chosen to follow the quantity over quality strategy. They have been steadily losing significant market share in big ticket M&A and finance and instead of dealing with those signficant challenges, have elected to open up new offices and stretch senior management bandwidth even further. Rather than being a top-end boutique that delivers a quality legal product, the strategy seems to be to become a Haldiram's with a franchise in all the big Indian cities.

Delhi Lawyer 8 Feb 2012, 11:17

I got what you are trying to say but I think South India is an important market as lot of foreign investments and infra projects are taking place in Tamil Nadu !!

In House Counsel 9 Feb 2012, 06:14

I don't think expansion is necessarily at the cost of quality. Fox & Mandal strategy it may be, but Linklaters and Latham & Watkins are not considered mid-market or low quality firms, simply because they have set up shop everywhere. The challenge though would be to find adequate quality lawyers at each location, which in India is easier said than done.

Scooter 9 Feb 2012, 09:44

+0 -0

AM does not need to house 200 lawyers in each one of their offices. They are more of strategic offices, marking presence. (their lawyers need a place to rest when visiting those cities..just joking). These offices become a first point of contact for the clients. the work need not be done from these offices all the time. Bombay office does work for del co., del office does work for bbay companies...its all flexible.

Peter 12 Feb 2012, 06:04

hope amarchand mangaldas isn't disppointed with the choices they have made for chennai expansion. if amarchand didnt have resources to do a proper check they might as well googled or listened to rumormill at esplanade office. i can guess how the guy in delhi may be grinding his teeth for the loss incurred. all said and done the guy in delhi did a lot for the one who leaves him high and dry suddenly.

MOre DEtails 23 Mar 2012, 16:12

Hey Kian,
U wrote that they are opening but never mentioned who are the partners who are going to move,
are they roping in ahmedabad person/lawyer to handle their office at gujarat or just bring random people from all over the india. Untill or unless they hire the big shot from Guj High court to do their litigation work and the famous gujju to do their work i dnt thnk they are going to be succesful ;)

what do u say :P

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