SNG & Partners and SN Gupta & Co merge to create full service law firm

SNG & Partners, headed by Rajesh Narain Gupta and S N Gupta & Co, headed by Sanjay Gupta have merged their corporate & real estate transaction practice and litigation practice respectively into a combined entity to create a full service law firm, according to the firm press release.

The merged firm will operate under the name SNG & Partners and have 22 partners (including 5 equity partners) and about 113 lawyers across all offices. The merged firm will be managed by Rajesh Narain Gupta (pictured) while Sanjay Gupta will be the Senior Partner.

Mumbai-based SNG & Partners focusing on corporate and banking & finance work had rechristened itself from S.N. Gupta & Co in 2011. The decision to merge the two firms was taken at an all partners meeting held in Delhi two weeks back.

The firm has also started a taxation practice with Virendra Gupta, Ex-Member, of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, joining the firm as a partner in Mumbai.

Speaking to Bar & Bench about the decision to merge the two firms, Sanjay Gupta said, “We were always perceived as one law firm by the market. The only difference was SN Gupta was focusing on the litigation side while SNG Partners was mainly focusing on the corporate side. So, we thought that it would be best to merge the two firms to create a full service law firm”.

“Also, the lawyers within the firm will have more avenues as they can now move to a different practice area if they want to. There is full scope for growth”, added Sanjay.

In November 2012, SNG & Partners had opened offices in Chandigarh, Jaipur and Chennai, with three firms (one from each city) merging their practice with SNG as part its’all India expansion plan.

Corporate Practice Head and Partner, Amit Aggarwal said, “The idea was to create a pan India platform. So that’s why we have merged with firms outside Delhi and Mumbai to set up our branches. The intent is not only to cater to clients based in those locations but also to be of assistance to corporate houses which are based over there. We feel that there is great amount of potential in these smaller cities also, which remains untapped. The interest with the customers and even corporate investments are now moving from tier 1 to tier 2 cities. So, that’s where the interest of opening up these branches cropped up”.

Talking about the merger, Amit said, “Technically the two firms are separate but the time has come to join hands not only to cross-sell each other’s services to our existing clients but also to tap the new potential and to see which are the areas where we can compliment each other and market each other. Also, I always felt that we would not be complete if we do not have in-house litigation”.

The firm has also merged its practice areas under a number of partners with one practice head each. Sumit Bansal heads the Litigation practice supported by Partners Ajay Monga, Rajnish Gaur & Hiren Mehta.

Corporate practice continues to be headed by Amit Aggarwal supported by S.Babu, heading the Mumbai practice of the firm and supported by Navneet Gupta, Varsha Kriplani, Anju Gandhi & Nupur Singh.

The Infrastructure division, part of the Corporate practice, continues to be headed by Rashi Anand Suri, whereas the Real Estate practice shall be continued to be looked after Munish Upadhaya in Delhi and Dhiraj Jain and Sadhawa Mishra in Mumbai.