Data from a global firm reveals the countries that are the source of most inbound and outbound M&A deals for Australian lawyers.

Baker & McKenzie provided Lawyers Weekly with exclusive data on Australian inbound and outbound activity for 2013-14 and 2014-15 on the back of its Cross-Border M&A Index.

According to the data, Australian lawyers work most with bidders from the US, the UK and China for inbound deals.

In 2014-15, the most inbound deals were secured by the US (58), followed by the UK (23), China (20) and Japan (14).

This was similar to 2013-14, when the most inbound deals were secured by the US (62), followed by the UK (20), China (20) and Singapore (16).

In terms of the industries lawyers worked on most for inbound deals, services/other was the most common in both 2014-15 (34) and 2013-14 (28).

In 2014-15 financial services came second (15), followed by industrial products and services (13), mining (12) and energy (12).

In 2013-14 leisure was more popular (20), as was energy (17), consumer: foods (12) and computer software (11).

In terms of outbound deals, there were 133 deals secured in 2014-15, up 31.7 per cent from 101 deals in 2013-14. The total value of outbound deals was up 13.7 per cent from US$22.6 billion (AUD$32.2 billion) in 2014-15 to US$19.9 billion in 2013-14.

According to the data, Australian lawyers work most with New Zealand, the US and the UK for outbound deals.

In 2014-15 New Zealand was the most popular outbound country with 32 deals secured, accounting for almost a quarter of all outbound deals in 2014-15. This was more than double the amount of outbound deals secured with New Zealand in 2013-14 (15).

New Zealand was followed by the US (25) and the UK (21) in 2014-15.

It was a slightly different order in 2013-14, with the US coming in first (22) followed by New Zealand (15) and then the UK (13).

For outbound deals, Australia targeted computer software (19) services/other (15) and financial services (13) in 2014-15, while in 2013-14 Australia targeted services/other (15), energy (11), financial services (9) and mining (9) the most.

The Index more generally also tracks levels of cross-border M&A activity back to Q1 2010 using a baseline score of 100.

In Q4 2015 the Index reached a record high of 331, due to the large amount of mega-deals secured during the quarter.

The data shows that in 2014-15 a total of 188 inbound M&A deals were secured, down 5.1 per cent from 198 in 2013-14. However, the total value of inbound deals in 2014-15 was US$48.2 billion, up 40.6 per cent from US$34.5 billion in 2013-14.