After a spate of hires for Allen & Overy's (A&O) US practice that has seen it grow by 11 partners in the past eight months alone, new US senior partner Tim House is determined to further capitalise on the firm's ambitions and prove the global player can stamp out a successful footprint on the other side of the pond.

Former global senior partner contender House, who will take up the US senior partner position on 1 May, says: "I feel over the last eight months we've started to develop renewed momentum in growth. We will have 50 partners in the US when I start in the role. We don't have a specific target number to grow to, but that is still a lot smaller than we'd like to be."

This is echoed by senior partner Wim Dejonghe: "It's about building up the depth of the bench. We now have quality across a number of areas, but are still too small."

Last summer, the firm significantly expanded its US finance practice with the hire of four partners from Proskauer Rose and White & Case, as well as a Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy associate who joined as a partner. Speaking to Legal Week shortly after the hires, A&O global banking co-head Philip Bowden described the move as a "game changer" for the firm's finance practice. That team shares several clients with A&O, including Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.

This January, the firm bolstered its US litigation and investigations practice with three partners from Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft and white-collar defence boutique Morvillo. And last month, the hiring spree continued with a three-partner finance and securities team joining from Paul Hastings in New York. Both of those teams also share a number of financial institutions and asset management clients with A&O.

House says: "The US strategy has always had three core components: finance, litigation and M&A. We've recently made significant moves into the finance sector and more modestly in litigation.

"We're pulling together everything we now have in the US across all disciplines to concentrate on the capability they can bring to the firm's key clients, who are either headquartered in the US, or clients who are headquartered elsewhere in the world but deal with cross-border issues with a large US component."

The two partners who joined from Cadwalader, Anthony Mansfield and Gregory Mocek (pictured), recently travelled to London to meet clients they share with the firm's regulatory enforcement team. House says their arrival will broaden the firm's global investigations practice that feeds into and out of the US.

"They bring experience with asset managers in the oil and gas sector, metals, mining and a whole range of global commodity trading. These specialisms will clearly benefit us in developed and emerging markets and hook in very well to our global investigations practice."

House adds that the partner trio recruited from Paul Hastings – which includes former leveraged finance head Bill Schwitter, finance and high yield specialist Michael Chernick and capital markets partner Jeffrey Pellegrino – will work closely with the firm's lawyers across London, continental Europe and Asia. Those hires mean A&O now has 12 leveraged finance and high yield partners in New York.

While there are no further hires immediately in the pipeline, House's plan is to continue recruitment in both New York and Washington DC.

A&O's senior management have never dismissed the option of a merger with a US firm, and House maintains this approach – but adds that there is nothing on the horizon.

"The next immediate step is to integrate these recent hires and make sure they are well known and working across our global network," he says.

To effectively compete with Wall Street's elite, A&O's new US recruits will need to draw on the magic circle firm's global platform, and the firm is clearly determined to capitalise on their cross-border capabilities. Having demonstrated its commitment by breaking lockstep for several of the hires, A&O looks set continue to throw its weight behind the teams to ensure they continue to build up their credibility as a genuine contender in the US.