Four years after it emerged that Ashurst was exploring another round of US merger talks, this time with Sidley Austin, the firm looks a long way from achieving a substantial foothold in the world's largest legal market.

Earlier this year, Ashurst's management visited New York to discuss the firm's future in the US. Last week the results of those conversations became clear, when Legal Week broke news that six partners were leaving the New York office as the firm refocused its practice away from collateralised loan obligation (CLO) work.

In addition to a five-partner team joining Chapman and Cutler and Larry Berkovich set to join Allen & Overy, initially as a counsel while his hire is being voted through, it has now emerged that the partner formerly in charge of Ashurst in New York, Bill Gray, is also set to follow his former legacy McKee Nelson colleagues to Chapman and Cutler. Gray became a consultant at Ashurst at the start of 2017.

A number of associates are expected to follow the partners to their new firms, although final numbers are still to be confirmed. Ashurst's website lists 10 of its 22 non-partner lawyers in New York as having CLO expertise.

The exits draw a line under the bold structured finance play Ashurst made in 2009 when it hired an 11-partner, 20-lawyer team from McKee Nelson, as all of the partners have now left.

So, how will Ashurst reposition itself in the US in its new, smaller form?

According to chairman Ben Tidswell, the directive for the US, which now houses four partners in New York and three in Washington DC as well as a number of associates, is two-pronged. The main focus is to build in projects and provide specialist expertise in areas such as energy and infrastructure, where it already has capability.

Its secondary focus is to act as a support system for other global practices when they need US knowledge – which may result in a more diversified business in the future but not in the short term.

Tidswell says: "If we were going to hire people in different practices to support our global offering, we might consider having a more diversified banking business, as well as more funds, tax and regulatory capability. You could make a case for those areas, but it's not something pressing at the moment."

While Tidswell maintains that any potential expansion of this kind is not pressing, former partners suggest the firm would be unlikely to be in a position to achieve it even if it wanted to, given the volatility it has seen in New York and its underwhelming profit per equity partner (PEP) figure.

One former London partner says: "New York is such a difficult market for people to work in. My understanding is that US partners felt the rest of the firm didn't understand the NY market and didn't understand what it took to hire people there."

Another former City partner adds: "Ashurst has a very strong culture and doesn't want to dilute that. They used to be able to be very selective but they now can't be as selective. I think they'll find it difficult to grow."

Asked whether the firm would follow the example of magic circle players such as Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Allen & Overy by offering exceptional financial incentives for new joiners in the US, or breaking lockstep, Tidswell is unconvinced. He argues that this will not be necessary for the projects focus the firm is keen to build.

He says: "It's quite dangerous to think about it just in terms of the difference in PEP or financials. People are attracted to us for the platform. If we said we want to be a big corporate firm in the US, we would find it hard to get people we thought were the right quality for that.

"But in, for example, the projects world, if we're selective and lawyers understand the benefit of our global platform, you start to have a different set of attractions. We have a very flexible compensation system and we don't feel the need to have anything more than we already have in order to attract the right people."

Demonstrating this to a degree, the firm added infrastructure partners Andrew Fraiser – who now leads the New York office – and Vincent Casey from Allen & Overy and Nixon Peabody respectively last year.

For the immediate future it is their practice and that of the two other partners in New York that will be the firm's focus: banking, energy and infrastructure work in the project finance sphere, with the firm picking up new clients including the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Los Angeles Metro.

Tidswell insists: "We've never thought that having a big US office was the right thing to do for the sake of it. There are many other ways of accessing that market."

While he will not be drawn on what the firm's preferred access method may be, he does not rule out a merger, despite Ashurst's chequered history in this area, with past failed talks with Latham & Watkins, Fried Frank and Sidley Austin among those in the public domain.

One former US partner thinks the firm has previously aimed too high. He says: "The challenge they've had in the past is they've had champagne taste. They think they're above what their profits are."

Whether the firm has revised  its expectations in terms of a potential partner is unclear but on the subject of mergers, Tidswell is keeping an open mind.

"We wouldn't do anything that wasn't sensible from a business or cultural point of view," he concludes. "I can't think of a single UK firm that would say it was an easy thing to do – that's not to say it can't be done but deliberate decisions have to be taken in terms of the value it brings. If we had an opportunity to have greater scale in the right way, we would be very interested."