Casting a wider net

India’s ‘national’ law firms are beefing up their practices in the south of the country. Lucrative manufacturing, IT and real estate deals beckon, but do the Delhi and Mumbai powerhouses have what it takes to compete with the local specialists?

George W Russell reports from Bangalore and Coimbatore

South India has long been considered a relatively impenetrable territory by Indians from elsewhere seeking to do business there. According to Hindu marriage traditions, north Indians generally seek to forge links outside their extended clans while south Indians prefer to bolster ties within them.

Such insularity has long been a barrier to India’s large law firms, most of which are based in New Delhi or Mumbai. Until recently Amarchand Mangaldas was one of the few national firms to have any presence at all in the south of the country.

But a sea change occurred as south India’s economy soared on the back of manufacturing, technology and real estate booms, and national law firms began following their clients to the region. “The initial frenzy to set up south Indian offices was motivated by a desire to retain IT and ITES [information technology-enabled service] clients in Bangalore and Hyderabad,” says Vivek Durai, the co-founding partner of Atman Law in Chennai, which is in the process of merging with a Delhi firm. “The second run largely focused on the real estate boom and real estate-specific investments across south India.”