Yangon, Myanmar Yangon, Myanmar. Photo: Phuong D. Nguyen/Shutterstock.com.

Baker McKenzie is planning to significantly reduce the size of its Myanmar office and advise related matters from other offices in southeast Asia.

The firm will keep a physical office in Yangon, the largest city in the country, but its presence in Myanmar will be minimal, according to a source familiar with the matter.

"We are not closing our Yangon office," a Singapore-based spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "As part of an ongoing review of our operations in Yangon, Baker McKenzie has decided that, while we will continue to retain a presence in Myanmar, we will be implementing a new approach involving greater integration with teams from our other offices in southeast Asia and beyond."

The firm spokesperson said the future of the legal staff in Yangon is still part of an ongoing consultation, and that "it would be premature to say any individual is leaving". The firm expects to retain legal staff on the ground in Yangon, but the size of the team will likely be small.

Baker McKenzie's Yangon office has suffered several senior departures in recent years and currently has only two senior lawyers. Infrastructure lawyer Jo Daniels, the only partner in the office, has been in talks to join another firm in Yangon, the source said.

Daniels did not respond to a request for comment.

Daniels has been Yangon managing partner since 2016; she relocated from the firm's Brisbane, Australia, office. The Yangon team also includes senior intellectual property associate Chadd Concepcion, who joined the office in 2017 from Singapore firm Kelvin Chia Partnership's Yangon branch.

Baker McKenzie is reviewing its five-year-old Yangon office after seeing a string of senior departures in recent years. Since 2017, partners Ross Taylor, Ola Borge and Matthew Hopkinson, senior counsel Min Min Ayer Naing and special counsel U Than Maung all have left the firm.

Taylor and Ayer Naing are now partners at Yangon-based SCM Legal, which was founded by Christopher Hughes last year. Hughes launched the Yangon offices for Baker McKenzie and Berwin Leighton in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

Myanmar, which was once one of the most hyped legal markets in the world, has been a difficult market for global firms. At least a dozen major firms entered the southeast Asian country from 2013 onwards, but last year saw the first exits when U.S. firm Herzfeld & Rubin and legacy U.K. firm Berwin Leighton Paisner shuttered their offices. But lawyers in Myanmar are still upbeat about work and opportunities in the resource-rich country, such as the new companies law that took effect last August and the liberalisation of the insurance sector.

"Despite challenging market conditions, Baker McKenzie sees the importance of Myanmar as a vibrant emerging market, especially given its membership in ASEAN," the firm spokesperson said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

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