Top-30 firm Mishcon de Reya has called time on its New York office, saying its US practice was ‘no longer consistent with our business in London’.

Mishcon de Reya set up its first and only international outpost in New York in 2010. However, in 2016 it halved its US partnership to three after deciding not to replace those who left. The entire New York team has now been recruited by Hong Kong head-quartered King & Wood Mallesons.

Mishcon's managing partner Kevin Gold said: ‘After much deliberation, we have agreed with the partners of Mishcon de Reya New York LLP to withdraw from that business. We thank them and the team for their hard work over the past decade and are very pleased that the team has successfully found a new home at King & Wood Mallesons.

'Mishcon de Reya New York LLP was always a separate business to Mishcon de Reya LLP in London, with different partners and a different structure. Over the last number of years, the New York office had focused its practice on contingency patent cases. This type of practice was no longer consistent with our business in London.This will not affect the many relationships we have with other law firms based in the USA.’

New York is a notoriously difficult legal market to crack, containing the highest concentration of lawyers of any US state and leading in a domestic legal market estimated to be worth more than $430bn.

While magic circle firms have bolstered their presence in the city in the past two decades, they remain smaller than US rivals such as Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Skadden and Davis Polk.