Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe has strengthened its Japan practice with the hire of Paul Hastings' former Tokyo managing partner Ted Johnson.

The US firm has recruited Johnson to join its M&A and private equity team in the country, bringing the total number of partners in the office to eight.

Johnson, who is a well-known corporate lawyer in Japan, was managing partner of Paul Hastings' Tokyo office between 2007 and 2009, and head of corporate for the firm in Tokyo from 2006 until this year.

As well as advising companies and PE funds on cross-border M&A, he also acts for clients on dispute resolution and compliance matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, anti-corruption, regulatory and competition law issues.

His biggest mandates include advising Walt Disney Japan on acquiring the Disney Stores from Oriental Land Co, acting for Wal-Mart on in its $875m tender offer to acquire the Seiyu, and representing Universal Entertainment on matters related to Wynn Resorts.

His is the second hire by Orrick in Tokyo this year, with the firm also recruiting White & Case's former head of Japan and North Asian IP and commercial litigation practices, David Case, who joined Orrick's IP group in March.

"We had been looking for M&A capability for quite a while," said the firm's Tokyo managing partner Mark Weeks.

"On the M&A front there is not only outbound work but more recently there has been a lot of inbound. What we are looking for now is a Bengoshi partner."

Orrick opened its Tokyo base in 1997 as its first international office, targeting clients in the technology, energy, industrial and financial services sectors.

Its key practices in the country now include cross border M&A, corporate and finance, IP and litigation, energy and infrastructure, with a focus on Japan-based multinationals, consumer electronics companies and renewables projects respectively.

"We think the growth of the office going forward will be on the Bengoshi front," added Weeks.

"The quality, and particularly the English language quality that we're seeing on the market has improved quite a bit. For Japan law matters we think it is more efficient to have Bengoshi.

"We think there is room for growth in litigation, and in energy and infrastructure the really exciting area has been inbound renewable energy, particularly solar."

Across Asia, Orrick currently has five offices located in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, Tokyo and Tapei.

At the beginning of this year it named China IP partner Xiang Wang as the new head of Asia Pacific, replacing finance lawyer Michelle Taylor.