Chicago employment firm Seyfarth Shaw has launched in Australia this week with the hire of eight partners from three firms.

The US outfit took five partners from Herbert Smith Freehills, two from Ashurst and one from Arnold Bloch Leibler, for the opening of offices in Sydney and Melbourne.

Focusing on national and cross-border labour and employment issues in the country, the firm chose lawyers who had previously worked on some of the most sophisticated and complex employment matters in Australia.

Joining from Herbert Smith Freehills was Darren Perry, Chris Gardner, Justine Turnbull, Ben Dudley and Luke Edwards, whilst from Ashurst the firm recruited Rachel Bernasconi and Michael Tamvakologos.

Additionally, Henry Skene joined from Arnold Bloch Leibler.

"We are very excited about the arrival of this market-leading group of lawyers in Australia, which continues our strategy of evolving our full-service platform and aligning closely with the markets that are of the greatest strategic importance to our clients," said J Stephen Poor, Seyfarth's chairman and managing partner. 

"Australia remains one of the most robust and dynamic markets for workplace related legal work and, combined with the increasingly global needs of our clients, we see a number of different opportunities to serve clients throughout Australia and the Asia-Pacific region."

Seyfarth Shaw has more than 750 lawyers and 12 offices, including 10 in the US, one in London and one in Shanghai.

Its London branch opened in 2011 as its first overseas base, whilst the Shanghai office was launched in May marking its debut into Asia-Pacific.

For Shanghai the firm recruited partner Wan Li from DLA Piper as chief representative, who is now working alongside counsel Jeffrey Sims and two associates to focus on employment and energy matters.