Perhaps the question should not be, why does Allen & Overy keep losing partners to US firms, but why are Wall Street’s finest so poor at attracting them in the first place?

On the one hand, losing Andrew Brodie to Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy within days of rising acquisition finance star Euan Gorrie’s decision to succumb to the eager embrace of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett does suggest something of a pattern emerging at One New Change.