Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A. Shroff & Co. has opened an office in Ahmedabad, the Indian firm’s sixth office in the country, which will be manned by partners Pankaj Agarwal and Tejas Karia, apart from five other lawyers.

Agarwal, who will head the corporate practice, has experience in M&As, private equity, joint ventures, financing, and corporate advisory work, with a particular focus on real estate and PE. Karia, who will head the litigation practice, specializes in international and domestic commercial arbitration, corporate litigations, IT, real estate disputes, securities laws and general corporate advisory.

Ahmedabad is the financial capital of Gujarat, the state with the fastest growing economy in India. It is also one of the most industrialized states of India, and has a per capita GDP well above the national average.

Amarchand has a number of clients from Gujarat, across sectors such as petroleum and petrochemicals, power, engineering and automotive, mines and minerals, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, ports and shipbuilding and so on. The office expects to increase its total strength to nine lawyers within a year.

“In the absence of a structured full-service corporate legal advisory firm in Gujarat, Amarchand is set to provide the hitherto unavailable niche services from its diverse portfolio,” said Agarwal in a statement.

Currently, the firm has 555 lawyers including 59 partners, and offices in the cities of New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. ALB

Ranajit Dam is Southeast Asia Editor at ALB. Follow him on Twitter: @RanajitDam_ALB