Holman Fenwick Willan has been handed around 100 new client relationships – including BAE Systems and Cathay Pacific – with the firm's hire of an eight-partner aerospace team from Barlow Lyde & Gilbert earlier this year.

The team, which joined Holman last month, has brought a host of high-profile clients to the firm as well as broadening the range of work Holman can handle for its existing clients.

Other client wins include airline companies Etihad Airways and Emirates, while work for existing clients China Airlines and Rolls-Royce can now significantly extend beyond the European Union and marine advice Holman respectively handles for the companies.

Holman held its global partner conference in Berlin last month, with the integration and development of the new aerospace capability one of the main topics under discussion.

The top 30 law firm is planning to invest further in the practice with another partner hire in the pipeline, while one partner from the new team, Richard Gimblett, will split his time between the firm's London and Dubai offices in the coming months.

The firm has also identified investment in the oil and gas sector as a main plank of its 2011-12 strategy, with further lateral hires on the cards, while markets such as Canada, in which natural resources are a key source of revenue, are being kept under close consideration.

Holman made 25 lateral partner hires in 2010-11 and launched two new offices in Geneva and Perth, while the hire of the aerospace team also saw the firm take on Barlows' Sao Paulo base.