ELP expands footprint to southern India; Bangalore office functional while Chennai branch on the cards

Economic Laws Practice has recently launched its Bangalore office located on Richmond Road. Mumbai Tax Partner Nishant Shah (pictured) will be heading the Bangalore office. The Bangalore team comprises of five lawyers including one senior associate, two associates and two trainees..Nishant Shah, who will be dividing his team between Mumbai and Bangalore, is an Equity Partner at ELP and has been with the firm since 2005. Prior to that he has worked at Deloitte and KPMG..Talking about the decision to set up the Bangalore office, Nishant says, “We didn’t have presence in South India. Most of our South India clients (with majority in Bangalore) had been putting it across to us that we should set up an office there.”.“We decided Bangalore as the location because it has the Karnataka High Court, CESTAT and ITAT and we already had an established client base here”, says Nishant.On the practice areas the Bangalore office will focus on, Nishant says that, “We already have a tax team looking into direct and indirect taxation and we are looking to build the corporate team in Bangalore. And since I have extensive experience working on matters related to SEZ, we will be catering to various clients in Technology parks located in and around Bangalore.”.Talking about the plans for Chennai office, Nishant says, “Within a month we will be opening Chennai office. One of our Senior Asoociates, Kartik Sundaram who has recently rejoined the firm, will be in charge of the Chennai office. We have already located an office space in the Nungambakam area.”.The firm already has a presence in Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Pune..ELP was recently in the news after Equity Partner, Tarun Gulati, who was heading the Litigation & Dispute Resolution practice at the Delhi office left along with ten other lawyers to join PDS Legal. ELP has since then hired 9 lawyers from different law firms to replace the team of 11 lawyers. Former Trilegal Counsel Amit Vyas and Amarchand Principal Associate Vinayak Burman too have recently joined the Mumbai office of ELP as Associate Partners.