Seyfarth Shaw is opening a Hong Kong office with the hire of DLA Piper Asia employment head Julia Gorham.

The Hong Kong office will be the latest addition to the US firm's international employment law coverage. Seyfarth chair and managing partner Pete Miller said adding Hong Kong would help the firm meet its global clients' increasing demand for specialist employment assistance in Asia-Pacific.

Gorham joined DLA Piper in 2014 as Asia head of employment, prior to which she had been an in-house employment and litigation counsel with JP Morgan in Hong Kong, where she initially led the response to the US Securities and Exchange Commission's investigations into the bank's so-called 'sons and daughters recruitment programme' to hire children and relatives of influential Chinese officials.

She joined JP Morgan in 2010, after nine years at Allen & Overy.

The Hong Kong base will become Seyfarth's fourth Asia-Pacific office, alongside Shanghai, Sydney and Melbourne. The Shanghai office opened in the summer of 2013, with the hire of former DLA Piper corporate partner Wan Li. The US firm launched both of its Australian offices in the same year, with eight partners from Herbert Smith Freehills, Ashurst and local firm Arnold Bloch Leibler.

Globally, Seyfarth now has about 900 lawyers in 15 offices, including five outside the US.

The firm is currently advising eight former Herbert Smith Freehills in a dispute over the terms of their exit to launch an Australia practice for White & Case.