Advani & Co and Nehru & Co to merge Pune offices to form ‘Advani Nehru & Co’

Mumbai-based law firm Advani & Co has decided to merge its Pune practice with Pune-based corporate law firm Nehru & Co to form ‘Advani Nehru & Co’ in Pune, reports ET. The new entity, which will soon be moving to a bigger office, will have a strength of about 20 lawyers..Speaking to Bar & Bench, Senior Partner Hiroo Advani (pictured left) clarified that the merger is between the Pune offices of Advani & Co and Nehru & Co and that the Mumbai and Delhi offices of Advani & Co will only provide support to the new Pune entity..As per Hiroo Advani, Advani’s Mumbai Partner Aradhana Prabhakar will drive the Pune office along with Amol Nehru of Nehru & Co..On the merger, Hiroo Advani said, “We wanted to tap the Pune market and have a sizeable presence in Pune. Since we were not able to manage on our own and considering Ranjan Nehru has a huge corporate practice in Pune, we decided to merge with them. The merger is logical, as they also needed support in Mumbai and Delhi.”.Ranjan Nehru (pictured right), Founding Partner of Nehru & Co, said, “The idea is to create a new entity in Pune to address the needs of Pune corporate clients. Pune is missing out on the services of full-fledged law firm. With the growth of IT, Automobile, Pharma and Real Estate sector, there is a lot more need for proper legal services. With this merger, we are trying to fill that gap.”.He added, “Since Advani has had a presence in Pune for a while and we have been around for more than 25 years in Pune, we now wanted to expand and bring in more resources. We found a symbiotic relationship with Advani.”.Earlier in 2011, Advani & Co had merged with Delhi-based litigation firm Accendo Law Partners. In the same year, the firm had also entered into best friends relationship with New York based law firm Moses & Singer LLP to share expertise for the benefit of multi-jurisdictional clients.