Mumbai based law firm Udwadia & Udeshi has merged with young law firm Argus Partners. The merger will be effective from April 1, 2012.

The merged firm will operate under the name Udwadia, Udeshi & Argus Partners and have 12 partners and about 60 lawyers. It will have offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai and will be managed by Krishnava Dutt, Founding Partner of Argus.

According to sources, both the firms signed the agreement today, concluding several rounds of discussions held over the last few months.

This tie up was facilitated by Legal League Consulting. Speaking to Bar & Bench on the merger, Bithika Anand Founder of Legal League Consulting said, “Consolidation through well thought out and effective mergers can surely catapult growth for law firms. Indeed this is a great development and will pave way for many such pragmatic decisions benefitting law firms in future.  Cultural Mix though may seem to be a big challenge but through successful mediation these can become the biggest turning points”.

Bithika further said, "This one of its kind merger between Argus Partners and Udwadia & Udeshi, will allow the new "Firm" to advise wide-ranging businesses on array of comprehensive legal issues, through their combined depth and breadth of knowledge, experience, and infrastructure. It is great to be part of this new chapter in the Indian Legal Industry".

Argus Partners was set up in 2009 by Krishnava Dutt, former Amarchand Mangaldas Kolkata Partner and Ramya Harihanran, former Amarchand Principal Associate. Argus Partners had initially set up an office in Kolkata, later expanding to start a Mumbai office in 2010.

Dilip Udeshi and Darius Udwadia are the founding partners of Udwadia & Udeshi. Both Dilip Udeshi and Darius Udwadia were Partners at Crawford Bailey before they set up Udwadia & Udeshi in 1997. The firm has offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.