Amarchand Mangaldas has recently hired Vandana Sekhri and Ajay Joseph in its Mumbai office. Prashanth Venkatesh has joined the Bangalore office.

Vandana has joined as a Senior Consultant and Ajay as a Principal Associate in the General Corporate Practice Group. Prashanth has joined as Principal Associate in the Finance Practice Group.

Vandana is a graduate of Government Law College, Mumbai. Prior to joining Amarchand, she was a Partner in Juris Corp, Mumbai. She had recently resigned from Juris Corp to explore other opportunities. She has also worked with Desai & Diwanji for one year. Her main areas of expertise include structured finance, private equity, joint ventures, corporate and commercial. She is also a Solicitor with the Bombay Incorporated Law Society.

Prashanth was previously working in the London office of Linklaters. Before that he worked at the Chambers of Dr. Rajeev Dhawan for 3 years. His areas of expertise are leveraged & acquisition financing, derivatives and structured products. He is a graduate of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore and has done his LLM from the London School of Economics.

Ajay has joined Amarchand from Khaitan & Co.’s  Mumbai office. His main areas of expertise are private equity, joint ventures, mergers & acquisitions and investment funds. He is a graduate of the Symbiosis Law College, Pune. He did his Masters in Law from the University of Durham, UK.

Amarchand’s stated goal of 1000 lawyers by 2017 will require them to go on a hiring spree and search the Indian legal market for best available talent as they will have to maintain a fine balance between quality and numbers. We expect Amarchand to continue hiring laterally through 2012.