Jones Day has hired Alan Seem as a partner in its capital markets practice in Palo Alto.

Seem spent the last 20 years practicing at Shearman & Sterling. A fluent Mandarin speaker, he headed Shearman's Asia capital markets group and its Beijing office before moving to the firm's Menlo Park office about four years ago. He has taken a number of large companies public, including the Chinese social media platforms Weibo and Renren and the online lender China Rapid Finance.

Seem said Jones Day's emphasis on client service, and particularly on its corporate clients, was a selling point, as was the firm's substantial presence in both Northern California and China.