You can almost hear the laughter pealing around Kempson House. Four years after Allen & Overy (A&O) inflicted a damaging raid on Norton Rose's acquisition finance team, A&O just cannot hold on to LBO partners.

With Stephen Gillespie now heading to Kirkland & Ellis, the suspicion must be that the arrival of the four-partner Norton Rose team in 2002 ultimately came at the price of more than the quartet's drawings. While undoubtedly a successful team for A&O, the upheaval of introducing such a tightly-knit group appears to have taken its toll on the magic circle firm's cohesion.

Aside from Gillespie, leveraged finance has lost Tony Keal and his protege Euan Gorrie to Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, while Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom last year recruited one of the younger Norton Rose four, Clive Wells. Meanwhile, A&O's wider banking team has continued to steadily leak UK partners to US firms. Gillespie, returning to major fee earning after several years spent primarily in a management role, may not be regarded as such a loss as Keal, but is the kind of serious and pragmatic lawyer the firm built its finance brand on.

The firm's critics view the loss more seriously, arguing that A&O's underweight corporate practice, especially in private equity, is playing havoc with its banking team, particularly when doing battle with the impeccablybalanced debt/equity offering of Clifford Chance and Ashurst. That is debatable, but the firm has done itself no favours by dithering over its private equity ambitions.

Also at play is the familiar problem of handling high-billing partners in individualistic practice areas such as leveraged finance within the confines of institutional firms. It is telling that Gillespie preferred the less-than-silky charms of incoming Kirkland & Ellis buy-out duo Graham White and Raymond McKeeve – not a pair with a reputation for touchy-feely relations with their debt teams – to rubbing along with A&O's lender-heavy practice.

Add in the eye-watering money being chucked around by US firms and London practices will just have to get used to seeing a steady stream of finance names walk out the door. It has yet to be proved that such boom-time trends constitute anything near a hole below the waterline, but the best defence for firms against these competitive pressures come from a united partnership. On this count, A&O has again been found wanting.

Ashurst's Apax apex

After years of complaining that the cards were not falling their way, the gods are smiling on Ashurst, which is turning up on every other noteworthy bid in town. In part this appears to be because a string of Apax-related bids have come good after several frustrating years. But with highlights including a role for the Goldman Sachs consortium wooing BAA, Charterhouse putting several noteworthy deals through Paris and more work from Blackstone, Ashurst has put in a cracking start to the year. The notoriously indecisive firm has even gotten off its rear to back up its planned push into projects with actual investment. With finance still on the front foot, the firm could not ask for a better hand.