Covington & Burling has boosted its international employment practice in China with the recent hire of Grace Chen as an Of Counsel in its Beijing office.

Prior to joining Covington, Chen was a partner at Bird & Bird. At Covington, she will be serving in the global employment team and handle cross-border projects.

Specialising in employment law, Chen has more than a decade's experience advising multinational companies in China in the media, IT, life sciences and clean-technology sectors.

Chen’s departure from Bird & Bird follows an exodus of six lawyers to IP consultancy AWA Asia earlier this year, including Ai-Leen Lim, a former partner and Greater China head of trademarks at Bird & Bird.

A U.S based law firm, Covington currently has three offices across Asia, including Beijing and Shanghai. It has five partners in the mainland China, three of whom are based in Beijing.