Ashurst has grown its government and public sector capability with two partner hires from Norton Rose Fulbright and HWL Ebsworth.

Norton Rose dispute resolution partner Melanie McKean and HWL Ebsworth TMT partner Angela Summersby will join the firm’s Canberra office.

McKean acts for governments, corporate and private clients and has experience conducting major investigations for the Australian Government.

Summersby’s practice focuses on Australian Government contracting, information and communications technology contracts, intellectual property, privacy and business process outsourcing.

This is the fourth partner exit for Norton Rose since its merger with Henry Davis York in December 2017. The first of these, Sydney financial institutions head, Chris Redden, exited the firm to join Ashurst two weeks before the merger went live.

Norton Rose corporate partners Anthony Latimer joined Bird & Bird and Iain Laughland joined local firm Mills Oakley.

These are the first hires for Ashurst in Australia this year, as the firm focused instead on bulking up its Asia banking practice. The firm hired a banking duo from Allen & Overy and Fangda earlier this month and launched in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone. The firm also hired White & Case partner Damien Whitehead to join as a local partner in its finance practice.