Paras Kuhad & Associates (PKA) and Hemant Sahai Associates (HSA) have merged their respective practices to form PHA, Advocates − a law firm with 115 lawyers and 10 partners. Hemant Sahai is the first managing partner of PHA and he will be leading the PHA team with Paras Kuhad.

“Initial dip stick feedback from clients prior to the merger had strongly endorsed the idea of this merger. The timing is also appropriate – not only are the markets looking positive, but also consolidation in the legal fraternity is becoming inevitable. The new firm PHA has aggressive plans to continue to induct further partners,” Sahai said.

This consolidation between PKA and HSA may have been partly motivated by the proposed liberalisation of the Indian legal market. “While PHA has certain strategies to deal with the liberalisation of the Indian legal market, significantly PHA partners do not necessarily view the opening up as a threat, rather it sees potential opportunities,” Sahai said. “In any event, irrespective of what form the liberalisation takes, the challenges can be met only by firms that have the ability to compete on the quality of services that it provides…”

PHA will benefit from the geographical spread of PKA and HSA and it will be able to leverage its practice from the greater combined size of the two firms. This merger is particularly well timed considering both firms had lost staff prior to the merger. PKA lost 45 lawyers in the months leading up to the merger. Similarly, HSA’s team had also undergone some attrition over the last few months including some losses from its energy disputes practice. However, Sahai said that since merger talks had made significant headway it was agreed that further hirings to replace the vacancies would be put on hold for a reasonable period so that a rationalisation of teams post-merger would not be necessary.

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