RPC has sealed the hire of a team of corporate partners from Wragge & Co, including former managing partner Richard Haywood and current practice chief Maurice Dwyer, as the firm continues to ramp up its corporate focus.

The duo will join RPC in the New Year alongside fellow partner David Marshall.

Haywood was Wragges' managing partner from 2003 to 2006 and also led the firm's corporate practice for two stints from 1993 to 2001 and from 2009 to 2011. Dwyer has been corporate chief since autumn 2011 and will be replaced in the role by corporate partner David Vaughan, while Marshall joined Wragges as a partner in 2010 from Travers Smith.

The team will take partner headcount in RPC's firmwide corporate practice to 12, with the number of fee earners rising to 38.

Corporate revenues at RPC grew 20% during 2011-12, with a similar increase expected by the close of 2012-13. The firm's corporate client base includes Daily Mail & General Trust, personal care product manufacturer SCA and and technology company Dialog Semiconductor.

Managing partner Jonathan Watmough said: "We have invested heavily over the last few years in our corporate practice, taking advantage of the downturn to hire very high quality people across the board and building out too in specialist areas such as intellectual property, technology, competition and real estate to ensure we have the breadth and depth there to support a quality upper mid-market transactional practice.

"This team will now help us to build out our capability even further with great parallels in both client relationships and deals. They make a great character fit with RPC as well."

The news comes after a spate of hires for RPC over the last year, including Charlotte Taggart, the former general counsel of insurance broker Lockton Companies International, last month. The firm also launched in Hong Kong in August with the hire of a 40-strong team including five partners from Clyde & Co and local outfit CdB and JC & Co.

The departures leave Wragges with around 20 corporate partners. Senior partner Quentin Poole said: "Richard, Maurice and David are all great partners as well as good personal friends – we will be sorry to lose them. But this is an exciting opportunity for them – RPC is a firm we know well and very much respect. We wish them all the best for the future".