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Wadia Ghandy & Co., is one of the oldest law firms of India. It was founded on 29th November 1883 with an office in what was then Bombay. Presently, the main office of the firm is located at the Fort area of Mumbai spread across five floors in two buildings (N.M. Wadia Building and Kalpataru Heritage Building) adjacent to each other. It currently holds offices at Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Jaipur and Bangalore. While it is a full service firm with partners across practice areas, it has well recognised and market leading litigation, real estate, aviation, estate planning, private equity, general corporate, intellectual property, competition and banking teams.

History

The law firm was started by Framji Rustomji Wadia and Jiwaji Dinshaw Ghandy in the 1880s. The firm's "managing clerk," Ardeshir Jamshedji Chanji Mistry published memoirs of its history in 1911 and 1925, along with memoirs of the Bombay High Court in 1925. These remain rare and valuable "primary source" accounts of the everyday life of the firm and Indian legal profession at the turn of the twentieth century. Despite losing one of their senior partners Anand Bhatt in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack, the firm has continued to prosper. In May 2024, Wadia Ghandy & Co. was awarded in the Aviation category at the Indian Law Firm Awards 2024 by the India Business Law Journal.

Structure

Wadia Ghandy is a partnership firm comprising more than 60 partners who sit in the offices spread across six cities of India. For offices other than the Mumbai office, there are junior resident partners and the partners of Mumbai have cross-partnerships in such local offices. Currently the position of managing partner of the firm is shared between the senior partners Ashish Ahuja, Dhawal Mehta, Shabnum Kajiji, Marylou Bilawala and Bindi Dave, whereas Mr. Nihas Basheer and Mr. Denzil Arambhan are the deputy managing partners.

Articleship programme

The firm is well known for its article-ship training programme which is similar to the one followed in U.K (Solicitor trainee). It is a three-year programme whereby an articled clerk is assigned to a department for a year and rotated at the end of each year (Conveyancing, Corporate, Litigation; not in particular order) and thereby providing holistic training. the firm follows three round process in selecting articled clerks wherein the first round consists of shortlisting candidates on the basis of their C.V., selected candidates then proceed to the second round which consists of personal interview with the head of H.R and then the candidates selected from the second round proceed to the third round which consists of personal interview with a senior partner.

References

1. Ardeshir Jamshedji Chanji Mistry, Forty years reminiscences of the firm of Messrs. Wadia, Ghandy & Co (A.J.C. Mistry, 1925)
2. A. J. C. Mistry, Reminiscences of the Office of Messrs Wadia Ghandy & Co. (Bombay: Commercial Reporter's Press and the "Echo" Press, )
3. A. J. C. Mistry, Forty Years' Reminiscences of the Firm of Messrs. Wadia Ghandy & Co. (Bombay: the author, 1925)
4. A. J. C. Mistry, Forty Years' Reminiscences of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay (Bombay: the author, 1925)
5. Mitra Sharafi, "Two Lives in Law: The Reminiscences of A. J. C. Mistry and Sir Norman Macleod, 1884-1926" in Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud, Anoop V. Mohta and Roshan S. Dalvi, eds., A Heritage of Judging: The Bombay High Court through 150 Years (Mumbai: Maharashtra Judicial Academy, Indian Mediation Centre and Training Institute, 2012), 259-83
6. "Indian Law Firm Awards 2024". Law.asia. 29 May 2024.

• Law firms of India
• Law firms established in 1883