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It is easy to say with hindsight, of course, but the one consolation for Lovells as the firm watches its City private equity team depart, is that the writing was on the wall.

As the number of firms desperately hunting for proper private equity names grew, and deal sizes with it, the suspicion was always that the buy-out merry-go-round was spinning too fast for Lovells.

That impression was only reinforced by the lawyers who built Lovells’ small but profitable City buy-out team in the 1990s. Certainly, individualistic characters like Marco Compagnoni and Allan Murray-Jones are hardly cut from the firm’s typical cloth.

For keen observers of the species, much attention will now be focused on how Compagnoni fits in at Weil Gotshal & Manges, which already has the services of Mike Francies and Mark Soundy.

The Mike, Mark and Marco show promises either an unbeatable mix of business-winning charm and deal-doing grit or a textbook ego clash. Rivals concede the former is the more likely outcome but, either way, Gotshal has got one hell of a pitch team.

Unfortunately for Lovells, there is little doubt that its M&A ambitions have suffered a severe dent. Mergermarket stats show that Lovells was the fifth-highest ranked private equity adviser in volume over the past 12 months, acting on 32 deals with a combined value of €10.5bn (£7.2bn). And while it is open to debate whether clients such as Advent and Charterhouse will follow Compagnoni or Derek Baird to Allen & Overy, Lovells faces a challenge to retain substantive client links in such a competitive market.

None of this would matter so much if such observations were confined to the private equity world. If Lovells is to get its M&A practice back on track, it must rely on more than its base of annuity clients and the talents of heavyweights like Hugh Nineham and John Davidson. Lovells has to start looking like a place where rainmakers can flourish.

The firm points to an improved transactional performance with financial institutions and some ground-level instructions in the much-hyped field of infrastructure funds as reasons for optimism.

Many would also argue the firm under David Harris is doing much right, but it is clear that Lovells’ corporate team needs to get some results soon.

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