Asia-Pacific was the second most active partner recruitment market outside the US for international firms in 2015, according to new Legal Week research that highlights the dearth of hiring activity in the troubled Middle East market.

Across the 33 primarily US firms providing a regional breakdown of their lateral partner hiring activity, 106 hires were made in the Asia-Pacific region, representing around 15% of total hires by the firms worldwide.

This compares with 14% of all partner-to-partner hires for the UK, 13% in continental Europe and just 1% in the Middle East. The overwhelming majority of hiring activity (56%) took place in the Americas, where most of the firms are headquartered.

King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) was also included in the survey and, unsurprisingly given its Chinese and Australian heritage, was the the most prolific hirer in Asia across the group, adding a total of 25 partners across its offices in Australia and Greater China. Leaving KWM out of the equation Asia hires represented 12.5% of lateral activity in 2015, narrowly behind Continental Europe and the UK. Dentons is not included in the table as it did not provide a full regional breakdown. 

Click here for the full list of non-UK lateral hires

The most active US firm in Asia for partner-level hiring was Morgan Lewis & Bockius, which added 17 partners to its ranks as part of its mass hire from now defunct US firm Bingham McCutchen, including a five-partner team in Tokyo. The firm also added eight new partners in the UK and eight in continental Europe during the year.

Baker & McKenzie was the only other firm to make a double-digit number of hires in Asia in 2015, adding a total of 10 lateral partners across Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar and Indonesia. In addition, in April 2015 the firm entered into a Shanghai Free Trade agreement with PRC firm FenXun Partners, allowing it to offer PRC law.

Click here for more on UK hiring trends and further analysis

Other key hires in Asia saw Latham & Watkins bring on board William Woo from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Hong Kong, while White & Case picked up a number of magic circle partners, including private equity expert Peggy Wang and corporate partner Kyungseok Kim from Linklaters' Hong Kong office.

"When you look at the laterals who join us, they are from the magic circle and other major international firms," said Bakers' Asia head Bruce Hambrett.

"Six of the 10 are based in Southeast Asia and I think that reflects our clients' interests.

"Thailand is investing heavily in Myanmar and also Australia and Singapore is investing in Myanmar. So it is a combination of capital flows and practice areas which has driven our growth."

K&L Gates made a total of nine Asia-Pacific partner hires, with seven partners joining the firm in Australia as well as additions from Allen & Overy and Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson in Hong Kong.

The turbulent Middle East

The Middle East saw very little lateral partner movement during the course of the year, with the group of firms surveyed adding just eight lateral partners to their ranks over 2015.

Bakers made the largest number of partner hires of the group, adding two to its offering. The only other firms to make any hires in the Middle East were KWM, Morgan Lewis, Squire Patton Boggs, Winston & Strawn, White & Case and Baker Botts, all of which took on one new recruit each.

A number of firms have retrenched in the Middle East in recent months, either shrinking headcount or closing offices altogether. In March last year, Latham made headlines by announcing plans to close its Abu Dhabi and Doha offices in order to focus on Dubai. Vinson & Elkins, meanwhile, closed in Abu Dhabi earlier this year.

The biggest hirer across all regions in the last year was Greenberg Traurig, which took on 86 new partners globally, including a team from Olswang in Germany. Bakers was the next most active on the recruitment front, taking on 72 partners, while K&L Gates made 50 lateral partner hires.

Only 10 firms made nine or fewer hires in the 12-month period, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett alone in making no hires at all.