Five New York-based partners left Ashurst in July for US finance firm Chapman and Cutler, with a sixth partner departing for Allen & Overy (A&O) last month.
Partners Patrick Quill, David Nirenberg, Steven Kopp, Doug Bird and Tom Glushko all left Ashurst, completing the full departure of the ten-partner team the firm hired from McKee Nelson in 2009 to launch a structured finance practice.
The team originally arrived as part of a 30-lawyer finance team that included ten partners in 2009. The deal gave Ashurst a substantive US law presence in both New York and Washington DC.
The five-partner exit, the last of the ten partners to leave, followed the departure of Scott Faga and Eugene Ferrer for Paul Hastings in 2015, and Alice Yurke, Richard Davis and Michael Voldstad, who each left between 2011 and early this year.
A sixth New York-based partner, Larry Berkovich, left in August to join A&O’s growing New York office.
Ashurst managing partner Paul Jenkins said the firm is now focusing on growing out its New York office, building on its infrastructure, banking and regulatory offering.
‘As part of the strategy for that office, and my overall continued intention of lifting profitability and performance, I restructured that office,’ Jenkins told Legal Business. ‘It’s about looking strategically and making sure our practices are aligned. I don’t want to have separate businesses that are not integrated into our global platform.’
Asked whether the firm was currently undertaking any other reviews, Jenkins added: ‘There are no other single reviews. Any managing partner should be looking continually at how you can profitably grow a firm, which is what I do. I have been in the role now for 14 months and wanted to make these changes as soon as I could.’
Ashurst has lost a number of partners in recent months, with the firm’s Paris arm losing a four-partner team to Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher earlier this year.
The move came four months after a five-partner Ashurst Paris buyout team quit for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. Taking ten associates, the team had billed around £8m a year in recent years.
Ashurst also lost two City-based real estate partners, with Darren Rogers and Patrick Williams leaving for Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson’s London office in June.