Real Estate expansion to accommodate headcount

The Delhi office of Amarchand Mangaldas (Amarchand) has added 22,000 square feet to its already existing 73,000 square feet to expand its practice in Delhi. Amarchand had purchased the existing building in the Okhla area of New Delhi during the real estate slump in 2002-03.  There are more than 200 lawyers in the Delhi office. Amarchand is expected to take the head count to an additional 80-90 lawyers this year with nearly 8-10 additional Partners. Speaking to Bar & Bench, Managing Partner of the Delhi office, Shardul Shroff (pictured) said, “We will increase our head count this year and we wanted to provide additional space and infrastructure, therefore have occupied the ground floor of the building we owned”.

Amarchand may announce upto four Partners in May this year after their internal Management Committee approves their promotion. With additional hires and Partner promotions along with the firm setting up a crèche within the law firm premises, additional space will benefit the firm.

Practice Areas

Amarchand has been gradually expanding its practice areas and have added intellectual property, taxation and competition law. Last year Amarchand added insurance law practice and this year, two new practice areas will be added, labour and environment. Most global law firms have large practice groups around labour and environment. Labour statistics reveal that there are more than 350 reported lockouts and strikes that occur every year across large corporations. Apart from strikes there are several issues of labour compliances that have concerned technology corporations.

The growth in retail industry has also meant that more complex issues concerning labour management practices have affected retail corporations and therefore may be a good decision for law firms to specialize in this sector. In a direct comparison to the US market, the last decade saw the maximum growth for retail giant Walmart. Its growth has also been surrounded by large labour practice violations and compliance related issues that have benefited firms like Patton Boggs and Venable. With Indian manufacturing and technology growth continue to remain steadily upward, labour practice specialization will be key to law firms providing multi sector practice expertise. With already existing Government and Policy practice at Amarchand, adding of labour law practice may benefit it tremendously.  

“A brand like Amarchand cannot provide sub-standard service, therefore when we announce a practice area, we need to have the right partners and associates to take ownership and also right set of clients,” says Shardul Shroff.

Technology and Administration

Amarchand had already been working with the customized version of Reuters’ platform, Elite 3E. This customized product of Reuters helps firms in generating intelligent mangement information system (MIS) reports and will let the firm know the exact billable hours and the revenue generated by an associate or a partner. The firm also has adopted document management systems like iManage. “With new technology and the right precedent, turn around time becomes quicker and improves individual performance” says Shroff.

Amarchand has built specialist administration departments to assist lawyers and to ensure that lawyers focus on the legal issue than being hounded by administration issues. In smaller firms, most lawyers also act as a part of the administration management. Amarchand believes that the firm in order to get to the next level of expansion and growth has to build strong administration capabilities to tackle growth. The firm has built strong Applied Research and strategy group, communications team, knowledge creation and management group and a strong administration team to support lawyers and focus on business development.

“Lawyers managing administration may not be the best of decision” says Shardul. There are reasons for this, law firm management of large law firms may not be similar to that of running operations of a similar size manufacturer or technology companies. Nottingham University in UK and Stony Brook University in US have specialized MBA programs for Law Firm managers. The western law firm practice also indicates a similar structure of administration with a designated administration team.

With the largest law firm in India having an aggressive outlook, it may be good news for law firm aspirants as the job market may have bounced back after the terrible two years of global slowdown.