Cambodia Leadership Review
The legal sector in Cambodia is rapidly evolving, driven by increasing foreign investment and growing demand for international-standard legal services. As a seasoned leader in Cambodia’s legal industry, Matt Rendall shares insights into his leadership principles, the challenges and opportunities in the sector, and the significance of the firm’s transition to Kinstellar.
Leadership Values and Guiding Principles
CLR: Matt, as a seasoned leader in Cambodia’s legal sector, what core values and guiding principles have defined your leadership approach? How have these values influenced your role in the firm?
Being a trained foreign lawyer from a developed market, my focus was always the delivery of international standard legal products. My legal experience was from working for corporate law firms in Sydney – where there are very high expectations from clients in terms of the standards or professionalism in the product you deliver to them. That is everything from the emails and letters you draft to the Contracts and Advice Memos you provide. Even a typo, or grammatically incorrect sentence (or ever the layout of the written work), could leave a very bad impression on the client. There is an assumption that the quality of the written work reflects the standard of the substance of the advice or contract etcyou’re your spelling or grammar is subpar the client will assume that your substantive knowledge is also subpar (even if this is not the case).
That was always one of the main challenges here where all our client communications (both written and verbal) were in English, yet for our lawyers this is their second language (or sometimes third or fourth language). Whereas those of us who work here could appreciate this (and not assume the substance is wrong or substandard just because the grammar or layout is), our clients would not be so forgiving – and, as a result, may well go elsewhere.
So, in terms of leadership values and guiding principles, I focused a lot on professionalism of product delivery. No short cuts, diligent proof reading, etc. Also, it is very important to try and understand the client’s viewpoint (or objective of their enquiry) so your responses adequately address their concerns. There is nothing more frustrating for a client than to think they have not been understood in the first place (which often leads to an enormous amount of unnecessary waste of time). Again, most of the time the client has no sympathy (or appreciation) for the fact that the lawyers are not operating in their first language.
Challenges and Opportunities in the Legal Sector
CLR: The legal sector in Cambodia is evolving alongside the country’s rapid economic growth and increasing foreign investment. What do you see as the key challenges and opportunities for legal professionals in 2025?
As the standard, size, complexity, and diversity of investor projects evolves and increases, so does the need for local law firms to up-skill in terms of being able to deliver the type of legal products and advice required to support those projects.
This is a major current issue in Cambodia.
Whole industries are brand new to Cambodia and as such there is not much experience, or expertise, among the Cambodian based lawyers of the type of legal skills required by these investors.
As such, a lot of legal work continues to be done by lawyers based in other countries such as Singapore (where there a number of international law firms) or the UK etc. Investors are incurring the expense of engaging law firms from those countries as there are no lawyers in Cambodia with requisite expertise in the subject industry or sector. Our firm has been involved in matters where the lawyers for the opposing side have flown over from London, for instance. The required expertise is simply not available here or is limited.
Law schools need to be cognizant of this and adapt courses to focus of areas of investment that are new or likely to come to Cambodia. Like all sectors, the legal profession here needs skills development to accommodate new client needs and the evolving investment landscape.
The Rebranding to Kinstellar
CLR: Rebranding to Kinstellar is a significant milestone for the firm. What inspired this transformation, and what new initiatives or strategies are being introduced to better serve your clients in Cambodia and the region?
The great thing about our collaborating with Kinstellar is that they are an already proven, experienced and successful legal services firm in developing markets similar to Cambodia (namely, Central Eastern Europe – as well as Vietnam for the past year).
Kinstellar is in fact an initiative and creation of Linklaters which is a one of the world’s leading law firms servicing developed markets such as the UK and US etc (21 countries in all). Kinstellar (which is an anagram of the name Linklaters) was designed to cater for developing countries whereas Linklaters focuses on developed markets. As such, Kinstellar has a tremendous amount of resources and expertise to draw from in its various practices around the world which can benefit all its respective offices – which will now include Cambodia in its collaboration with us.
This factor was a major reason why we chose to collaborate with them in servicing the Cambodian market. Given the rise in the types and complexity of investment projects in Cambodia (both local and foreign) there is now also a corresponding need for a rise in the type and complexity of legal services to cater for these investments. By collaborating with Kinstellar it will help bring international standard legal skills, and law firm management, to Cambodia to help better cater for this new situation. This will then stem to need for foreign investors (and, indeed, significant local investors) from having to seek legal services internationally.
Not only will this help attract more foreign investment, it will also help with raising the skills of the local lawyers in Cambodia, as well as provide better legal services for local businesses. This new law firm collaboration can also assist the government with legal framework development and policy issues, given their vast experience of operating in many different countries and jurisdictions.
Overall, it is very positive for large segments of Cambodian society. The potential positive impact is endless. As such it is an opportunity that we were very happy to accept the more and more we considered it.
Cambodia Investment Review, in partnership with the International Business Chamber of Cambodia, has officially launched the Cambodia Leadership Review – 50 International Voices 2025. Now in its second edition, the publication highlights 50 of the most influential international business leaders and innovators contributing to Cambodia’s dynamic economic landscape.
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