Cambodia's legal industry is struggling to serve the country's growing business community and must adapt to survive, according to local lawyers.
Lay Vicheka, a Phnom Penh-based legal consultant at BNG - Advocates & Solicitors said that local lawyers must evolve in order to survive in the "increasingly complex legal marketplace".
Vicheka said the country's development has created a sharp divide between an older generation of lawyers previously unaffected by globalisation and a younger generation who will have to compete with international law firms. "The previous generation has been quite isolated from the world, as Cambodia was not a member of ASEAN and WTO then, and business was also slower," said Vicheka. "It will be very hard, working on cross-border transactions across the generations now, since the younger generation need to learn new laws and gain understanding of other cultures across the border. We need to adapt our services [in line with] the international firms."
Marae Ciantar, a Phnom Penh-based partner at Allens Arthur Robinson, agrees that progress is needed in the legal industry. "The legal market is generally quite small here, and most firms are too small to support investment and the kind of infrastructure and resources needed for lawyers," he said. "Both externally and internally, to be able to support lawyers, there must be provisions such as training programs and knowledge management systems, and firms need to be of a certain size to meet those needs."
Ciantar said that while the country's growth over the years has meant a steady flow of work for local firms, continuing development of the legal industry is restricted by the type of work coming in. "It's very difficult to develop specialist skills as there just isn't enough flow of work or progress of new laws to develop those specialist skills," said Ciantar. "It's complicated and limited by the state of development of the economy, but there have been some changes. The new bar president is working on a new training program and opportunities to share knowledge between lawyers, such as setting up law journals, and they're certainly positive programs."
According to Vicheka, legal work will likely move to bigger law firms as cross-border work in the country increases with Cambodia's ASEAN membership. "Regional law firms are coming in and they are really much more competitive, not just in their understanding of the language of law but of financial business operations and their technologies. The FTAs will increase the flow of business, but we're not competitive enough to deal with cross-border contracts," he said.
As yet, the only international firm with a Cambodian office is Allens Arthur Robinson and, although the Australian firm has significant presence across Asia, Ciantar said he does not consider the firm to be competing with local Cambodian firms and lawyers for work.
"In major international transactions, the international role is played mostly by firms outside of Cambodia and they engage local firms," said Ciantar. "What we see and hope to do with our service here is engage those firms and bring in more investment into Cambodia."
Despite the country's steady growth, Ciantar said, the lower amount of work in Cambodia as compared to other regions will limit competition. "We're the only international firm which has a presence in Cambodia, which is a position in the market we're very happy with," said Ciantar. "We don't see that it's particularly likely that anybody else is going to enter the market because we're not sure that there's room for more than one or two international firms on the ground."
Law Firms in Cambodia
| Firm |
| BNG – Advocates & Solicitors |
| Bou Nou Ouk & Partners |
| Clough Thuraisingham International Co |
| Delaney & Co Indochina Limited |
| DFDL |
| Dirksen Flipse Doran & Le |
| HBS Law Firm & Consultants |
| Law Offices of Benson Samay |
| Pana Asean Law Office |
| Poblador, Azada & Bucoy |
| Sciaroni & Associates |
| Stringfield & Cheng PLC |
1 comment:
Benson Samay claims to be a US lawyer before coming back to Cambodia and to have attended George Mason University-but he never attended law school there according to the Registrar of Geo Mason. He was a translator in Washing D.C. working for a Refugee immigration service. He was at one time a member of the Cambodian Bar Association but that was based upon false information that he attended law school.
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