Linklaters & Alliance's Tokyo office has moved to new premises and hired a former Japanese diplomat from Slaughter and May, in a further sign of UK firms jockeying for position in the Japanese market.
Hideo Norikoshi, a Japanese UK-qualified lawyer, will fly out to Tokyo in August. He will be the office's 16th fee earner.
The corporate and M&A assistant had spent five years at Slaughters, having originally worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Norikoshi said he decided to leave the firm because he believed he would be "more useful working in Tokyo and Slaughter and May had closed their office there three or four years ago".
He added: "In my view, the work generally that the big foreign firms are likely to be involved with will increase in Tokyo, whereas the work for Japanese clients in Europe will be diminishing slightly, due to the economic problems faced by the Japanese investors at home."
Linklaters is also moving newly-made up partner Simon Davies from Hong Kong to Tokyo to replace Jasper Evans, who is going to the firm's Frankfurt office. Both are specialists in securities and capital markets.
A fourth Linklaters partner will arrive in October. The firm also plans to add at least one more securities assistant by the end of the year, making a minimum headcount of 18 fee earners.
The new arrivals coincide with the move of the Linklaters Tokyo office to 800m sq of premises in the up-and-coming former entertainment district of Akasaka, which was officially opened last week.
The firm's Tokyo managing partner Jonathan Inman said it was hard to predict how the economy would develop, but the move was a sign of the office's recent growth and the firm's belief that work would continue to grow.
"Japan is an exciting place at the moment, as it continues to open up and deregulate," he added.
"We are trying hard to keep up with developments in Japan, as the increased pace of deregulation and growing internationalisation of the financial sector lead to increased demand for legal services."
Linklaters is not the only firm on the move in Japan. Allen & Overy moved to new premises late last year and Clifford Chance's office, which has doubled its number of partners to four during the last year, is also looking at the possibility of finding a new home.
In February, Charles Stephens, managing partner of Freshfields' office, unveiled plans for his practice to become a top five Tokyo firm within the next five years.
Freshfields is the only UK firm to have established an association with a Japanese firm, run by senior bengoshi Naoki Kimani.
Partners at rival offices have said they have no immediate plans to attempt to follow Freshfields' lead. (See Japan briefing, page 5)