Pressed for a verdict on Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy’s London strategy, one City partner offers a typical response: “They certainly picked a decent lawyer, and Tim has brought in some clients, but there is only one of him.”

It was surely such widely held sentiments that ensured that the New York firm’s surprise appointment of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s aforementioned Tim Emmerson attracted so little attention last year.