Addleshaw Goddard has continued its recent flurry of international expansion with the hire of two partners to launch a Qatar offering for the firm.

Patton Boggs corporate partner Hussein Damirji will lead the new Doha office and will be joined by Dentons banking and finance partner Martin Brown. The firm is currently in the process of recruiting a small team of associates to support the duo.

Damirji joined Patton Boggs' Doha base in 2008 from the New Iraq Law Firm, which he founded in 2003. He specialises in corporate, commercial and family office investments and has advised clients in jurisdictions including Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, the UK and the US.

Meanwhile, Brown joined Denton Wilde Sapte, the legacy UK arm of Dentons, in 2007 as a leveraged finance partner from the London arm of White and Case. He has been based in Qatar since 2008 and has worked on conventional and Shariah-compliant financing transactions throughout the Gulf region, Africa and Europe.

The office formally opened at the start of the week after the base received regulatory approval last week.

Addleshaws international division managing partner Andrew Carpenter said: "We have large clients in the FTSE 100 and 250 looking at Qatar. We couldn't have a presence in the GCC while ignoring the jurisdiction, so it was a regional play for us. We have undergone rapid expansion in the region but we have no other openings planned in the GCC.

"The 2030 vision for Qatar looks forward to significant developments for Qataris in the way of education, healthcare and infrastructure on top of corporate work and we can help with experts in all those areas. While we will leverage our sector experts across all of our offices, we intend to provide a full core service for clients from all our GCC offices including Qatar as an important financial centre."

Carpenter was appointed as managing partner of the firm's newly created international division earlier this month after playing a key role in the development of all four of the firm's other recent overseas launches in Oman, Singapore, Dubai and Hong Kong.

Addleshaws managing partner Paul Devitt said: "This latest investment is a very exciting development for our capability in the Gulf region. By developing broad and relevant service lines across the GCC, we are well placed to provide clients with specialist, local market expertise in their own country, on pan-regional assignments and also in relation to their UK investment portfolios.

"Both Hussein and Martin are incredibly well respected and their track-records, combined with our strong presence in Oman and Dubai, send out a clear message about our long-term commitment to the region and to Qatar in particular."

The news comes after Addleshaws recruited Trowers & Hamlins' Oman corporate head Charles Schofield and banking partner Roger Byrne earlier this year to kickstart its Muscat offering, which was launched in association with corporate law expert Nasser al Habsi.

The firm formally unveiled its Dubai office last September, with the hire of a further partner from Trowers, construction specialist Andrew Greaves, on the back of its launch in Singapore last May.

Meanwhile, the firm's new Hong Kong base, which has been set up to target opportunities in China and the Far East, is expected to be fully operational by the end of May.