Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman will close its Taipei outpost in favour of a new Shanghai office, after having its first Mainland China licence approved.

Partner Joseph Chan will head the Shanghai office, and will aim to hire locally trained legal professionals on the ground in China, as well as fly in associates from the firm's Silicon Valley and other offices that have a unique focus and interest in China.

The firm hopes to exploit its Silicon Valley connections to work for technology companies expanding and investing in China. It also hopes to expand the services it is providing long-standing clients in Japan, also now looking to the mainland market.

The firm's Taipei office has only had a skeleton crew of two technical consultants since six lawyers left late in 2005 prior to Pillsbury's merger with Shaw Pittman. Michael Bednarek was flown in to resurrect the office after the merger, but without much success.

"We felt that the best way to maximise our resources and expand our footprint in Asia was to focus on our Tokyo and Shanghai offices, as they are located in two of the world's biggest economies," said Pillsbury executive vice chair Steve Huttler.