India’s National Capital Region continues to see a proliferation of boutique law firms in its legal market, with Unum Law, Sarvagya Legal and Kumar & Sardana Associates being the latest entrants.
Unum Law is a specialised disputes-focused law firm started by partners Sidhant Kumar Marwah, Disha Sharma and Anushka Shah. Marwah and Sharma both had their independent legal practices prior to founding Unum, while Shah was a senior associate at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas.
“We believe that prioritising subject-matter expertise within the larger realm of dispute resolution enables us to handle mandates of our clients with appropriate time and attention. This is especially critical in the context of international commercial arbitration, where written advocacy plays an equally important role, if not a greater one, than oral advocacy,” Marwah told ALB.
Unum currently specialises in general litigation, international commercial arbitration, intellectual property and energy regulatory practices, but the firm plans to branch out to other practice groups. “This is especially true of our technology law and data privacy practice, which will enable us to add value to our client’s interests on the compliance and transactional fronts,” Marwah said.
Marwah also adds that the firm’s size sets it apart from others in the legal market. “Our combined subject-matter expertise coupled with operating as small, focused teams will enable us to provide comprehensive solutions to our clients by eliminating cost inefficiencies. This will set us apart from existing, larger full-service models in the market.”
Sarvagya Legal is another newly established dispute resolution firm in the NCR region that specialises in construction arbitration and commercial litigation.
Sarvagya was launched by partners Abhishek Birthray, Reeta Mishra and Tanu Priya Gupta, all of whom worked at law firm Kochhar & Co. before starting their own independent legal practices in NCR. Mishra has also previously been a partner at Kochhar and Singh & Associates.
The firm’s practice areas also include intricate contractual disputes, general corporate litigation, white-collar crime, intellectual property, consumer protection, labour and employment, and real estate. The firm also leverages its disputes experience to provide clients with effective risk mitigation and strategic transactional advisory services.
A third entry into the legal market is intellectual property and technology-focused boutique Kumar Sardana & Associates, set up by a former equity partner at Remfry & Sagar, Swarup Kumar.
The firm’s core specialisation lies in handling patent specifications, filings and prosecution of cases across all technology verticals, working of patents and renewals. The firm also advises on IP matters, including the patentability of inventions, freedom to operate, assignments and licensing of inventions, searches, oppositions, revocations, as well as patent litigation.
The team also has experience handling high-value oppositions, particularly with respect to critical Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), pharmaceutical products, chemical compounds and biotech inventions.
The Indian legal market has seen a number of break-out firms in 2023, particularly in the dispute resolution space, with T&A, Legal Scriptures and Counsel & Council setting up shop earlier this year.
