Khaitan & Co, India's largest law firm by headcount, has established two new offices in Western India. It has opened an office in Ahmedabad after luring back project finance lawyer Atman Desai from Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, and one in Pune.

These new offices further expand Khaitan's network, which also has a presence in Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Kolkata, Chennai, and Singapore; the last two opened in 2021. According to the ALB Asia Top 50, Khaitan now has more than 1,020 lawyers across these offices.

Ahmedabad is the largest city in Gujarat, the home state of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. Between 2019 and 2023, Gujarat attracted $31 billion in foreign direct investment, and also is India's largest exporter.

Desai has almost 15 years of experience advising on project development, commercial contracting, government bids, and policy and regulation advisory in the infrastructure sector. He has advised clients on transactions with a specific focus on ports, data centres, power, mining, oil and gas (downstream) and highways.

Desai's clients have included the Adani Group, SBI Capital Markets, State Bank of India, and Micron Technologies. He returns to Khaitan after spending over a decade at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas.

"Atman will be based in Ahmedabad, and his role will also encompass extending the firm's overall service offerings to our existing and new clients, with a specific focus on Western India," Khaitan said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Pune office will be led by partners Radhika Iyer (corporate), Shailendra Bhandare (IP), and Devendra Deshmukh (real estate).

"Our focus in Pune will be on advising clients across full suite of services, including corporate and commercial, M&A, private equity and venture capital investments, intellectual property, real estate, corporate restructuring, banking & finance, capital markets, tax and dispute resolution," the firm added.