McDermott Will & Emery is launching a new five-partner Paris office with the hire of Herbert Smith's Paris corporate head Jacques Buhart, reports The Am Law Daily.

The office, which will formally open on 2 May, will be McDermott's seventh in Europe.

Buhart expects the majority, "if not all," of his former clients to follow him to McDermott. Those clients include European travel group TUI, oil and gas giant TOTAL and Toyota Motor Corporation.

Buhart will be joined by four additional partners, including former Arthur Andersen International tax partner Herve Bidaud, Bryan Cave employment litigator Jilali Maazouz, and Thibaud Forbin, who coheads the M&A practice at French firm Delsol Avocats.

McDermott is also finalising the hire of another partner who specialises in corporate and M&A. Four of the five partners previously worked together at the Paris office of Coudert Brothers, which dissolved in 2005.

The 12-lawyer office will initially focus on transactional work, including corporate, antitrust, employment, and tax. The firm intends to supplement those practices with a group devoted to energy.

"Paris has been a strategic target for over a decade," said McDermott global co-chair Peter Sacripanti. "It was a hole in our network, and one that has cost us business opportunities in the past. It's been a long search, but we had to find the right partners that would fit with our platform and culture. The new office will help us continue to build out our presence in Western Europe."

London managing partner Hugh Nineham, who last summer was appointed to McDermott's executive committee as the firm's first-ever European practice head, said that the firm had previously contemplated merging with a French firm before deciding to open a new office. Sacripanti added that the firm is now looking at expanding in Asia, with Beijing, Korea, and Singapore all under consideration.

Buhart will be replaced as head of Herbert Smith's Paris corporate practice by Bruno Basuyaux.

The Am Law Daily is a US affiliate title of Legal Week.