"They take our work and our partners and now they want our associates" – is how one senior partner at a leading City firm recently described the continued efforts by US law firms to make their mark in the London legal market.

And of course he is absolutely right. What else would they be doing here? But our latest research may offer a glimmer of hope to those at UK firms sharing similar thoughts: partner-to-partner hiring by US firms in London actually fell last year. Significantly. Our research into the recruitment practices at 44 of the largest international firms in the City found they made just 77 lateral partner hires last year, compared with 127 across the same firms in 2012. 

Now it is worth pointing out that 2012 was a pretty exceptional year – Dewey & LeBoeuf's collapse prompted a spree of opportunistic hiring by firms not normally that active in the recruitment market. Meanwhile, Locke Lord brought in 18 partners for a London launch and Dechert's eight-partner haul added more to the firm's City base than the previous three years combined. Neither of these firms made any hires in 2013.