AFCL Consultants

About AFCL

AFCL Consultants provide management consulting, recruitment and training services to legal organisations.

We have earned the reputation of being a premium service provider to legal organisations in India. We pride ourselves on market knowledge, honesty, and the respect that we have earned in the legal community. Our access to people in prestigious law firms and in-house legal departments is unparalleled and most 'relevant' people in the profession highly regard our deal-making skills.

AFCL's various offerings are designed to support law firms and in-house legal departments. Our approach is hands-on and we typically work with senior and managing partners, heads of legal, practice area heads.

Our consultants have the right combination of legal, finance, and consulting backgrounds that helps us understand the needs of senior/managing partners and heads of legal departments and provide them with realistic and practical solutions aimed at achieving the best for their organisations and their people.

Our Services

Legal Recruitment Services for Law Firms and In-House Departments

We leverage the deep relationships that we have developed with individual lawyers, prestigious law firms and corporate houses over the past four years to provide customised recruitment and consulting services. We work exclusively with mid to senior-level candidates, and are able to connect with such candidates quickly and in a responsive manner.

We pride ourselves on market knowledge, honesty, and the respect that we have earned in the legal community. Our access to people in prestigious law firms and in-house legal departments is unparalleled and they have complete faith in us to refer good quality candidates.

We also understand that recruiting a junior lawyer is very different to recruiting a partner/ equity partner or an in-house head of legal. AFCL's consultants have the right combination of legal and commercial backgrounds that helps us connect with lawyers across levels of seniority and give them the level of care and attention they deserve.

Are you a Client?

Whether you’re a private practice law firm or an in-house legal department, our consultants have the recruitment expertise to help your business.

We pride ourselves at the levels of repeat business we get from our clients. We provide bespoke services and are proactive in understanding the culture and recruitment goals of your organisation to build a successful working relationship based on trust and understanding.

We shortlist and identify the most suitable candidates from our extensive database of candidates, all of whom we have interviewed and screened. We undertake much, if not all, first-level screening so that we can provide our clients with the best possible match.

For further information on our services, general market information, or to discuss recruitment issues facing employers, please contact Premal Shah, Principal at AFCL, on +91 9819 680 680 or premal@afcl.in

Are you a Candidate?

Whether you are a mid-level associate or a partner, our aim is to not only provide you with access to the right vacancy and the best and broadest legal opportunities in the market, but to assist you to obtain a role that fits in with your long-term career goal.

Our services for candidates include:

• Career advice • Markets insight and salary advice • Interview guidance and feedback • Compensation package analysis and review

At AFCL, we are committed to quality and confidentiality. All discussions are kept strictly confidential.

For advice and information please contact Premal Shah, Principal at AFCL, on +91 9819 680 680 or premal@afcl.in. We assure you of a response within 24 hours.

Our Services

Recruitment Credentials

We have successfully completed various high-profile mandates both in the law firm and in-house spaces. The positions we have closed include: Senior/Principal Associate, Associate Partner, Counsel, Equity Partner, Director Legal, Vice-President Legal Senior Manager Legal.

We have placed candidates in the following practice areas:

• Arbitration• Banking and Finance• Capital Markets• Commercial Arbitration/Litigation• Competition Law• Compliance• Derivatives• General Corporate and Advisory• Infrastructure and Projects• In house - Corporate, Litigation, Contracts• Mergers & Acquisitions•  Private Equity and Funds• Project Finance• Real Estate (including corporate real estate)• Regulatory Affairs• Securities Law• Shipping and Maritime law• Structured Finance• Tax - Direct and Indirect

Our Services

AFCL Consulting

AFCL provides management consulting services exclusively to law firms. Typically, we work with senior and managing partners, and are able to bring our range of experience and expertise to help create creative solutions. In the past, we have worked with law firms on the following areas:

• Strategy development and implementation• Practices acquisition• Acquisition of teams• Law firm mergers• Building relationships with international law firms• Expanding domestic offices and opening up offices in international locations• Business development & marketing plans and implementations

Our Services

Mergers and Acquisitions

In a rapidly growing Indian market, law firms need to develop new practice areas. Building expertise within the firm may not match the speed of the growing requirement and complexities of the consumers of the legal services. This situation may require firms to consider either mergers or an acquisition of teams or individuals. In every case, these are highly complex, high-risk decisions. We help minimise the associated risk by ensuring a rigorous decision-making process that selects the partner or team most in line with the firm’s strategic aspirations and culture.

AFCL has worked with the larger, mid size as well as smaller firms seeking, evaluating and engaging in mergers and acquisitions. Our depth of market knowledge is unparalleled and the most 'relevant' people in the profession highly regard our deal-making skills. We specialize in acquisitions to lateral group moves to the combination of equals. AFCL has an impeccable track record in successfully closing quite a few high level reported deals.

Our law firm merger and acquisition services include:

• Merger/Acquisition/Combination Strategy• Deal Origination• Candidate Searches• Assessments• Deal Negotiations & Structuring• Merger and Post Merger Integration

Our Services

Training Services

AFCL provides cutting-edge, high-impact training programmes for transactional lawyers and in-house counsel. We have trained hundreds of transactional lawyers and in-house counsel from India's most prestigious law firms and corporate houses. Our USP is commercial, accounting, and corporate finance training for deal lawyers.

Unlike many other random programmes on finance, our programmes are a premium product, specially created for deal lawyers. It dwells into all accounting and financial issues of structuring, documentation and negotiation that are relevant for transaction lawyers to understand.

Our range of training solutions are designed to match lawyer’s practical needs and are adapted to real-world situations, rather than one-off seminars. We constantly review our training programmes and generate innovative content in line with the changing needs of the profession.

Programmes we conduct:

• Applying principles of financial statements to structuring, drafting & negotiation• Applying principles of corporate finance to structuring, drafting & negotiation• Derivatives & Structured Finance for lawyers• International Financial Reporting Standards for lawyers• Direct Tax for lawyers• Negotiating earnouts in acquisitions• Contract drafting• Accounting standards for lawyers

Our Team

Premal Shah - CEO

As principal of AFCL Consultants, Premal Shah

has led on a range of consulting mandates

alongside senior/managing partners and senior

in-house legal managers. His advice covers

strategic matters such as team acquisitions,

mergers, combinations, alliances, new offices,

partnership structuring, peer reviews, overall

firm strategy and its implementation including

business planning, and the positioning of law

firms in their market. He has also been

instrumental in creating innovative commercial

training modules and content for AFCL's various

training offerings.

Premal holds a B.Com. (H.R. College) and an

Ll.B. from Government Law College, Mumbai

University. He began his career as a commercial

lawyer at Wadia Ghandy & Co., advising on

private equity, M&A, and capital market

transactions. Having successfully cleared his CFA

Level 1 examination and various investment

banking/financial modelling programmes, Premal's

career bifurcated into finance, where he was

appointed to ENAM’s Investment Banking team.

This singular exposure to both law and finance

has allowed Premal to instinctively spot

structural, commercial and financial perspectives

behind business transactions. He founded AFCL

in order to apply this experience and the

network he has cultivated, to the training and

consulting needs of the legal industry.

Raghu Iyer - Consultant

Raghu Iyer is a fellow of the Institute of

Chartered Accountants of India. He qualified as a

Chartered Accountant in November 1984. He

secured the 4th rank in his Final CA examination

(All India) and the 3rd rank in his Inter CA

examination (All India). He is associated as

Adjunct Faculty with the S.P. Jain Institute of

Management & Research (Mumbai and Dubai),

which ranks among India’s top ten business

schools. He is also associated with the Bombay

Stock Exchange and Dun & Bradstreet Financial

Education Solutions. His areas of interest include

Finance, Accounting, and Direct Taxes.

As part of his practice, he works very closely

with some of India’s top business houses, such as

Tata, the HDFC Group, and the GMR Group on

diverse consulting assignments. He is also

associated with various business Groups in the

U.S., Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for

whom he conducts audits, valuation, due

diligence, and various consulting assignments.

As a consultant, he plays a very important role in

delivering AFCLs various training programmes

for senior transactional lawyers. He also plays a

key role on AFCLs consulting mandates,

particularly those relating to partnership

structuring, profit margin analysis, deal

structuring in mergers, acquisitions and

combinations.

Our Clients

Our clients include some of India's top law firms and corporate houses; an indicative list is as below:

• ALMT Legal

• AZB & Partners

• Bharucha & Partners

• Clasis Law

• Desai Diwanji

• DSK Legal

• Economic Laws Practice

• GVK

• IndusLaw

• ICICI Bank

• IDFC

• JSA

• Juris Corp

• Kanga & Co.

• Khaitan & Co.

• Kochhar & Co.

• Lexygen

• Platinum Partners

• Phoenix Legal

• Rajani & Associates

• Talwar Thakore & Associates

• Trilegal

• Udwadia & Udeshi

• Universal Legal

• Wadia Ghandy & Co.

Premal Shah

CEO

AFCL 

1 - First Floor, Examiner Press Building

Dalal Street | Mumbai - 400 001

T: +91 22 2267 3908 

M: +91 9819 680 680

E: info@afcl.in