AZB & Partners has promoted five of its lawyers to partner level, reported Bar & Bench.

The new partners, effective from 1 October, are:

Ananya Sharma

Sharma had joined AZB in 2008 from ICICI Bank.

Ratnadeep Roychowdhury

Roychowdhury had joined AZB in 2011 from Amarchand where he began his career in 2007.

Nilang Desai

Desai had joined AZB in 2013 from White & Case in London, where he had spent nearly three years after a total of four years in French firm Gide Loyrette Nouel and Linklaters, after graduating from King’s College London in 2005.

Lionel D Almeida

Almeida is a 2007 graduate from the University of Mumbai who had begun his career at Crawford Bayley as an articled clerk in 2005, joining AZB in 2007.

Anand Shah

Shah had joined AZB as a senior associate in 2013 from Wadia Ghandy with his team, where he was a partner.

Tumultuous 12 months

In June of 2015 the AZB Mumbai region had already promoted senior associates Nanditha Gopal in Bangalore and Percis Anklesaria in Pune, while in March 2015 the firm had promoted two in Mumbai and eight in Delhi.

AZB partners Kalpana Merchant and Shuva Mandal have left in the last month, while partner Essaji Vahanvati went on an indefinite sabbatical in January 2015, following the loss of senior partner Abhijit Joshi and partner Nandish Vyas in late 2014.

However, the firm has also hired former Facebook counsel Chetan Nagendra in Bangalore this year, and in Mumbai a compliance team from EY headed by Ajay Upadhyay, and the former legal head of Suzlon Energy, Naved Askari.

In 2014 Rishi Gautam had joined as a partner from Clifford Chance and Amazon, and Prashanth Sabeshan from Majmudar & Partners in Bangalore.