O'Melveny & Myers Shanghai managing partner Li Qiang has left the firm to join DLA Piper in the city.

Li will co-manage the firm's Beijing and Shanghai offices with partner Roy Chan. A corporate lawyer, Li advises on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and real estate transactions in and out of China.

Last year, he represented Chinese biotechnology company Sinocare on a $273m (£188m) acquisition of Florida-based diabetes testing company Nipro Diagnostics. Li has also advised the Shanghai municipal government on outbound investments.

Li had been a partner at O'Melveny since 2007. Before that, he practiced at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer for ten years in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Joining with Li is former O'Melveny Shanghai counsel Stewart Wang, who is now a partner at DLA Piper. Wang has represented Chinese companies on US listings and related M&A transactions. He joined the firm with Li from Freshfields.

O'Melveny Shanghai partner Walker Wallace will take over as office managing partner. Wallace is now the only resident partner in Shanghai although, according to its website, San Francisco partner Kurt Berney and Newport Beach partner Tony Wang also spend time in the Chinese city.

In Beijing, the firm has four partners: Geng Ke, Guo Bingna, David Roberts and Larry Sussman.

In theplast two years, O'Melveny has seen significant departures in Asia, chiefly from its Singapore office, which is also left with one resident partner, Nathan Bush, after 14 lawyers leaving.

DLA Piper's hires of Li and Wang follow the departure of a pair of China-focused senior deal lawyers late last year: former Beijing chief representative John Shi and of counsel Shan Lai both left to join Bird & Bird.

DLA Piper now has six partners in Shanghai.